Maybe Abner Mares was looking ahead, because he clearly didn’t see the first-round barrage of power punches Mexico’s Jhonny Gonzalez delivered to claim a stunning upset victory by knockout.
Former two-division champion Gonzalez, 31, first met the previously unbeaten World Boxing Council featherweight champion Mares (26-1-1) with a devastating left hook to the head that dropped the Hawaiian Gardens fighter.
Mares had won three different world titles in his four previous fights and seemed headed to a Los Angeles super-fight against unbeaten Leo Santa Cruz.
Lincoln Heights’ Santa Cruz, continuing to do the things that make him perhaps the favorite fighter of boxing purists, did his part by capturing the WBC super-bantamweight title with a third-round technical knockout of Victor Terrazas of Mexico.
Visions of the Santa Cruz bout vanished quickly as Mares gathered himself to tell referee Jack Reiss he was OK, lifting his hands to prove so as a surprised crowd of 7,686 at StubHub Center in Carson watched.
?I knew I had him very hurt after the first knockdown ? it was, ?Do I let him live or die?’? Gonzalez said. ?I didn’t want to give him a chance to recuperate.?
With an unmistakable look of rage in his eyes, Gonzalez (55-8, 47 knockouts) charged Mares and battered him with a flurry of punches, the most telling being a hard left to the jaw and a big right to the face that sent Mares crumbling to the deck again.
Reiss barely counted, responding to Mares’ disoriented condition by stopping the bout with five seconds remaining in the round.
?I came to the U.S. for this fight, and no one gave me credit,? Gonzalez said after pounding his chest with both fists in the ring, reuniting with the belt he surrendered last year to the man Mares took it from, Daniel Ponce De Leon.
?All they talked about was if Mares was going to be fighting Santa Cruz. I didn’t say anything, but it was disrespect. Everyone thought I was finished, at the end of the line.?
But Gonzalez’s knockout power clearly remains, and Mares admitted he had no answer for it. ?I’ve learned how to win. I need to learn how to lose now,? he said. ?I’m in the sport not to remain undefeated, but to fight the best.?
Fight promoter Richard Schaefer said that though in hindsight it would’ve made sense for Mares to start more cautiously against Gonzalez and to build up some strength after the first knockdown, ?That’s not Abner Mares, he doesn’t know how to take a knee.?
?That is why I say enjoy the fights first,? Schaefer said. ?We all think we know what’s going to happen. We think we know everything. We don’t.?
Schaefer said will discuss an immediate rematch. Mares and his manager said after the fight they want to exercise the rematch clause to fight Gonzalez again.
Santa Cruz (25-0-1, 15 knockouts) now stands as L.A.’s best pound-for-pound fighter. He battered Terrazas in the second round.
