MANILA, Philippines – WBO flyweight champion Brian Viloria considers Mexican challenger Giovani Segura his toughest opponent ever and that respect is his motivation to win convincingly as he stakes his crown in a 12-round ?legacy? fight at the Ynares Sports Center in Pasig this morning.
?I?m in for the long haul,? says Viloria who wrested the 112-pound crown from Mexico?s Julio Cesar Miranda last July. ?I know what to do to win. I can make it easy or hard for myself. The first few rounds will be crucial. I?ll use movement to make him miss. I won?t stay in the pocket. I won?t make him pressure me. I won?t be pushed into the corners. I?ll fight him in the middle of the ring. I?ll dictate the pace with my boxing skills. I know about his power but I?ve got power of my own, too.?
Viloria, 31, says there?s no mystery in figuring out Segura?s style which he describes as one-dimensional. ?He fights only one way,? notes the Hawaiian Punch. ??He doesn?t change his gameplan. He does the same thing every fight. He?ll go to the body, he?ll try to bang and turn it into a brawl. He swings wildly and he?s not as quick as Miranda. I?m prepared to break him down.?
Segura, 29, didn?t come all the way from Mexico to lose. He?s in town with manager Ricardo Mota and trainer Javier Capetillo who was suspended by the California State Athletic Commission for loading Antonio Margarito?s handwraps with plaster of paris before the fight against Sugar Shane Mosley in 2009.
In yesterday?s weigh-in supervised by WBO Asia-Pacific chairman Leon Panoncillo at the Midas Hotel, both fighters scaled 112 pounds.
For Segura, the only way to beat Viloria is to overpower him. His plan is to bulldoze his way through Viloria?s defense and knock him out. ?(My opponents) worry about my power,? says Segura in an interview by David Mayo in The Ring Magazine. ?They worry about not getting hit. I destroy their mind all the time. When it?s over, they realize it?s like a hammer hitting them in the head and that I had so much power they never could have imagined. Once they feel my power, even if they block a punch, they realize how strong I am. So anything they had in their head, once they start getting hit, just goes away. Their mind turns to how the heck they?re going to survive.?
