Yunieski Gonzalez: A future star in light heavyweight division?

By Boxing News - 07/30/2015 - Comments

pascal5(Photo credit: David Spagnola/Main Events) By Dan Ambrose: If you had the chance to see last Saturday’s fight between former WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal (30-3-1, 17 KOs) and little known Cuban Yunieski Gonzalez (16-1, 12 KOs) on the undercard of the Sergey Kovalev vs. Nadjib Mohammedi figh card, you probably were one of many who felt that Gonzalez was robbed in not getting the victory that he clearly deserved in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans.

Pascal, the better known fighter, was given a 10 round unanimous decision by the scores of 96-94, 96-94 and 96-94. The decision wasn’t a popular one to say the least. The fans booed the decision and showed the judges what they thought of their scores.

Gonzalez had thrown many more punches and outworked Pascal in every round of the fight. Pascal was able to avoid a lot of the punches by ducking low to make them miss, but he was still out-landed in virtually every round of the fight.

Based on that performance, Gonzalez looks to be in the top three to four in the 175lb division. The only guys that would give Gonzalez problems are Sergey Kovalev, Adonis Stevenson and Artur Beterbiev. Gonzalez already proved that he’s a better fighter than Pascal, and the only other fighters in the light heavyweight division that might give him problems are Juergen Braehmer, Sullivan Barrera and Eleider Alvarez.

I believe that Gonzalez is better than all three of those fighters. I personally have Gonzalez in the top three with Kovalev and Stevenson. Hopefully, HBO will give Gonzalez another chance to prove himself by facing another top guy. I’d like to see how he’d do against someone like Barrera or Alvarez.

Beterbiev will likely be facing Kovalev next in November, so he’s not someone that Gonzalez will be able to fight in the near future. I believe that Gonzalez would give Beterbiev a lot of headaches with his punching power and high work rate. Gonzalez also has a great chin, and that would help him beat someone like Beterbiev, Stevenson and Kovalev.

“I am so sad; that was taken from me,” Gonzalez said after his controversial loss to Pascal. “He did not win, I did. I was the real winner.”

It wouldn’t be surprising if HBO brings Gonzalez back for a fight against Sullivan Barrera. That would be a logical fight to make to help weed out one of these two fighters. Gonzalez could become a big fan favorite on HBO if he gets enough air play in the future. He’s got a ton of talent and could become a popular fighter like Kovalev.

I still see Gonzalez as undefeated despite suffering the controversial decision to Pascal. He should have gotten the victory by 8 rounds to 4 because he clearly outworked Pascal and looked to be the better fighter. Gonzalez does need to tighten up his defense. He was getting hit by too many shots by Pascal because he had his hands down rather than up by his head. Gonzalez also needs to learn to fight through clinches because he was giving up too easily each time Pascal grabbed him in a clinch. Gonzalez should have fought through those clinches the way that Shawn Porter did in his recent fight against Adrien Broner.



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