By Jeff Aranow: Unbeaten Artem Dalakian (16-0, 11 KOs) deeated former 2 division world champion Brian ‘The Hawaiian Punch’ Viloria (38-6, 23 KOs) by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision to win the vacant WBA World flyweight title on Saturday night at The Forum in Inglewood, California.
The scores were 118-109, 118-109 and 118-109. Dalakian, 30, lost a point in the 9th round for pushing Viloria’s head down.
The 37-year-old Viloria was dominated the entire fight. His best moment of the bout was in the 7th round when he hurt Dalakian with a big right hand that had him holding on. Dalakian was fighting wildly, throwing a big right hands and Viloria took advantage of it in that one instance to hurt him. The 8th round was close with both guys landing big shots. You can call that an even round. Viloria showed some of the talent that he had earlier in his career.
Viloria suffered a bad cut on his forehead in the 11th after getting hit with an elbow from Dalakian.
Overall, Dalakian looked good tonight in outworking the much older Viloria. This was a case of Dalakian having too much youth for the aging Viloria, who hasn’t held a world title since 2013. Viloria isn’t an over-the-hill fighter, but he’s clearly not the same guy that held world titles for an 8-year period from 2005 to 2013.
“I’m very proud to be the newest champion from Ukraine,” Dalakian said. “I knew I was hurting him the whole fight. I want to unify with any of the other world champions. I loved fighting in the United States and I can’t want to comeback and fight in Los Angeles.”
Dalakian is too reliant on his right hand to do most of his damage in his fights. If he can’t develop his left hand, he’s not going to hold onto the WBA 112 lb. title for long. It would be interesting to see Dalakian face WBC flyweight champion Daigo Higa. I think he would lose to Higa badly. It’s unlikely Dalakian will take a risky fighter like Higa because there’s too much of a chance of him losing badly to him.
Viloria can still be a useful fighter in the 112 lb. weight class. He would be probably better if he could move back down to 108 where his power would go further. I’m not sure Viloria can still make 108 at this point in his career without him draining himself making weight. Viloria hasn’t fought at light flyweight since 2007. That was 11 years ago. It’s not likely he’ll be able to make the weight.
“It was a tough fight, real tough guy, kept his distance. I could never get inside
like I wanted to. The head butt really made me woozy,” Viloria said.