Pound-for-pound king Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez has solidified his hold as pound-for-pound supremo by knocking out Brian Viloria in the ninth round of their title fight Saturday night at the Madison Square Garden in New York.
In the opening round, Viloria was the aggressor, throwing left and right combinations with some of them landing on targets. In second round Gonzales caught Viloria with straight power right punch sending him down the the canvas but survived the round. In the third round Viloria continued to attack Gonzalez and was able to sneak a good right straight that forced the Nicaraguan to step back. Gonzalez was clearly dominant in the third to fifth rounds with the fifth as his best round so far following Viloria’s knockdown. Halfway to the fight, Gonzalez remains in control as Viloria fails to penetrate Gonzalez’ defenses. Gonzalez was still dominating Viloria up until round eight. The ring doctor had a quick look at Viloria before the start of the ninth round. Viloria seems to have recovered from Gonzalez’s early dominance but later in the round, he caught Gonzalez with a solid shot at 2:53 of round nine following a flurry of punches in the middle of the round. “He’s very tough,” Gonzalez says. “Credits conditioning for allowing him to recover from the body shot that preceded the KO.” In a conference call prior to the fight, Gonzalez predicted victory over Viloria, citing his tough stamina build up while on training for the fight. “Viloria is good, he hits hard. After the sixth round, hell slow down. He has a very good crossover right, but he’s not a boxer who can move. If you cannot dance and have no legs, I will find you. He goes toe to toe because that’s his style of fighting. We have faced several opponents and I was able to knock them down,” Gonzalez said. Read more: With the win Gonzalez remains unbeaten at 44-0-0, 38 KOs while Viloria dropped to 36-5-0, 22 KOs.
