Viloria vs. Marquez on Saturday night in Los Angeles

By Boxing News - 11/12/2012 - Comments

By Chris Williams: WBO flyweight champion Brian Viloria (31-3, 18 KO’s) will be mixing it up this Saturday night against WBA World flyweight champion Hernan “Tyson” Marquez (34-2, 25 KO’s) in a bout televised by WealthTV at the Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California.

Also on the card will be unbeaten WBA World light flyweight champion Roman Gonzalez (33-0, 28 KO’s) making a title defense against challenger Juan Estrada (22-1, 18 KO’s). That fight could very well be more exciting than the main event. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that were to be the case because Gonzalez has huge power and Estrada won’t back off for a moment.

Viloria, 31, is facing a big puncher in 24-year-old Marquez, who is coming into his own now and fighting perhaps the best he’s ever done in his 7 year pro career. Marquez has put behind him his losses to Richie Mepranum and Nonito Donaire and has now won his last seven fights in the last two years. Marquez avenged his defeat to Mepranum by beating him by a lopsided 10 round unanimous decision in March of this year, and is coming off of a nice 10 round decision over Fernando Lumacad last July.

Viloria has won his last five fights after losing to Carlos Tamara by a 12th round knockout in 2010. Viloria shocked a lot of boxing fans by beating Giovani Segura by an 8th round knockout last December in the Philippines. More than a few fans thought Viloria could get bludgeoned into submission by the powerful pressure fighter Segura, but Viloria did a great job of using his speed, power and boxing skills to out-wit and then defeat Segura. In his last fight, Viloria did a good job of beating former WBC light flyweight champion by a 9th round TKO last May.

Viloria, 5’4″, will have a two inch height and a three inch reach advantage over the 5’2″ Marquez on Saturday night. This could work out well for Viloria if he can keep Marquez on the outside. However, that’s not going to be easy to do because Marquez is an excellent pressure fighter and he’ll definitely be trying to crowd Viloria so he can turn the fight into an all out brawl. That kind of fight favors Marquez because he’s the younger guy and he thrives on anarchy in the ring. Viloria will have to do his best to avoid getting into that kind of brawl because we could see him get stopped again if Marquez is able to get him fighting his type of fight.

You have to figure that Marquez will have more boxing fans cheering for him than Viloria on Saturday night because the fight is taking place in Los Angeles where there is a large Mexican community. Viloria will no doubt have a lot of his own fans coming to see him as well, but Marquez should have a big advantage in fans on Saturday.