Viloria vs. Iribe: Anyone Want to See a Mismatch?

By Boxing News - 08/27/2009 - Comments

By Manuel Perez: IBF light flyweight champion Brian Viloria (25-2, 15 KO’s) will be fighting bottom 15 ranked Jesus Iribe (15-5-5, 9 KO’s) on Saturday night at the Blaisdell Center, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Viloria, 28, defeated International Boxing Federation light flyweight champion Ulises Solis in an upset 11th round TKO on April 19th.

A lot of people expected that Solis would easily beat Viloria, the writer included. Viloria, with a huge Filipino crowd urging him on, cut Solis over both eyes early in the fight and ended up knocking him down with a right hand in the 11th round.

The fight was stopped at that point. Although Viloria got the win, I still don’t see him holding onto the title for very long. Viloria looks like he’s lost a lot of hand speed in the past five years and doesn’t seem to be the same fighter he was back in 2003 and 2004 when Viloria was knocking out almost all of his opponents.

I’m not impressed with Viloria’s choice of opponent for this Saturday night. It looks as if Viloria is trying to take the easy route by looking for the softest opponent he can get for his non-mandatory title defenses. Iribe has lost three out of his last eight fights and isn’t the best guy Viloria could have chosen if he wanted to give the Hawaiian boxing fans a good fight.

Why didn’t Viloria choose Carlos Tamara, Omar Nino, Adrian Hernandez or Cesar Canchilla instead of the bottom 15 ranked Iribe. That looks to me like Viloria is trying to extend his title reign as long as he can by taking safe fights. That’s not interesting to see Viloria fight a guy like Iribe and I can’t see the fight as being competitive.

Why not give a rematch to Solis? Like I said, I can’t see Viloria holding onto the IBF title for very long. As soon as Viloria has to defend it against Solis again or face challengers like Tamara, Nino, Hernandez and Canchilla, then Viloria can kiss goodbye his title.

But in the meantime, what’s up with Viloria’s choice of opponent? I can’t stand watching silly mismatches. If I was Hawaiian, I wouldn’t waste by time paying to see this mismatch. This is like a sparring match more than a competitive fight. I guess I can’t blame Viloria for taking such an easy mark.

I see Viloria as the 12th best fighter in the division, so I guess it’s best that he try to milk his title for as long as he can to get some more cash. But speaking from a boxing writers’ perspective, it’s not interesting to see mismatches like this. I’d rather watch a rerun on television than see Viloria beating up a stiff.



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