Esquiva Falcão Florentino (born 12 December 1989) is a Brazilian professional boxer. As an amateur, he won a bronze medal at the 2011 World Championships and silver at the 2012 Olympics. As a professional boxer, he accumulated a record of 30 straight wins before losing to Vincenzo Gualtieri by a 12-round unanimous decision in a fight for the vacant IBF middleweight title, his first-ever loss.
Early life Falcão was born in Vitória, Espírito Santo, and is the younger brother of professional boxer Yamaguchi Falcão.
Amateur career He became famous in his amateur years by winning the Middleweight bronze medal at the 2011 World Amateur Boxing Championships, losing in the semifinals to Ryōta Murata. He thus qualified for the 2012 London Olympics, where he won the silver medal, becoming the first Brazilian to reach an Olympic boxing final after defeating Soltan Migitinov, Zoltán Harcsa and local hero Anthony Ogogo.
His name is Portuguese for "dodge\slip", as his amateur boxer father wanted to circumvent the prohibition given for coach instructions during the fight, and guide his son simply by shouting his name.
He finished his amateur career with a record of 215 wins and 15 losses.
Professional career Falcão was supposed to fight Paul Harness on his debut, but Harness got injured only six days before the event and was replaced by Joshua Robertson. In his debut fight, he knocked out Joshua Robertson in the fourth round. Falcão's next fight was announced as part of the preliminary card of the Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley rematch event against Publio Pena. He dominated most of the fight and won by unanimous decision over Publio Pena. Two judges scored the fight 60–54, and one scored 60–53. Falcão was supposed to face Australian Alex Don, however, Don got injured and was replaced by South Korean Eun-Chang Lee. Falcão defeated Eun-Chang Lee by unanimous decision, the scorecards were 59–55, 59-54 e 58–55, all in favor of Falcão. The fight took place in Macau, China. Esquiva was expected to face Mexican Mike Noriega, but Mike broke his hand due to sparring. Noriega was replaced by the American Malcolm Terry Jr. and Falcão beat him via TKO in the second round after a second knockdown, the fight was stopped by the referee. The first knockdown came in the first round. After some time boxing, Esquiva Falcão amassed an undefeated record of 27 wins with 19 KOs, and then faced Russian Artur Akavov, in a fight where he defeated the Russian in the fourth round via RTD, because his opponent likely had a broken nose due to punches landed by Esquiva.
Falcão fought Vincenzo Gualtieri for the then-vacant IBF middleweight world title on July 1, 2023. Originally Falcão was supposed to fight Michael Zerafa for the title vacated by Gennady Golovkin, but Zerafa opted to pursue a World Boxing Association title fight against Erislandy Lara that opened the opportunity for Gualtieri. He ultimately lost a 12-round decision to Gualtieri, the first loss of his career.
Falcao is scheduled to face Wilkens Mathieu on April 11, 2026, in Quebec City, Canada.
Professional boxing record
ResultRecordOpponentTypeRound, timeDateLocationNotes33Win31–2Marcos Vinicius Rodrigues De BarrosKO2 (8), 2 Aug 202532Loss30–2Hebert ConceiçãoUD1015 Jun 202431Loss30–1Vincenzo GualtieriUD121 Jul 202330Win30–0Cristian Fabian RíosUD1029 May 202229Win29–0Patrice VolnyTD6 (12) 20 Nov 202128Win28–0Artur AkavovRTD4 (10), 20 Feb 202127Win27–0Morrama Dheisw de Araujo SantosTKO1 (10), 29 Aug 202026Win26–0Jorge Daniel MirandaRTD5 (10), 29 Feb 202025Win25–0Manny WoodsKO3 (10), 9 Nov 201924Win24–0Jesus Antonio GutierrezTKO8 (10), 19 Jul 201923Win23–0Jorge Daniel MirandaUD1031 Mar 201922Win22–0Guido Nicolas PittoUD1020 Oct 201821Win21–0Jonathan TaviraKO1 (10), 28 Jul 201820Win20–0Salim LarbiKO1 (10), 10 Mar 201819Win19–0José Miguel FandinoTKO7 (8), 3 Nov 201718Win18–0Norberto GonzálezUD85 Aug 201717Win17–0Jaime BarbozaUD817 Feb 201716Win16–0Luis HernandezUD82 Dec 201615Win15–0Josué ObandoRTD6 (8), 28 Oct 201614Win14–0Paul Valenzuela Jr.TKO4 (8), 14 May 201613Win13–0Joe McCreedyTKO5 (8), 19 Mar 201612Win12–0Hector MuñozTKO4 (8), 12 Dec 201511Win11–0Zoltan PappKO2 (8), 26 Sep 201510Win10–0Aaron DrakeTKO4 (8), 26 Jun 20159Win9–0Paul HarnessRTD3 (8), 8 May 20158Win8–0Omar RojasUD611 Apr 20157Win7–0Mike TufarielloTKO2 (6), 28 Feb 20156Win6–0Lanny DardarTKO5 (6), 6 Dec 20145Win5–0Austin MarcumTKO2 (6), 4 Oct 20144Win4–0Malcolm Terry Jr.KO2 (6), 9 Aug 20143Win3–0Lee Eun-changUD631 May 20142Win2–0Publio PenaUD612 Apr 20141Win1–0Joshua RobertsonTKO4 (6), 15 Feb 2014
References
External links Esquiva Falcao at Top Rank (archived)