By Dan Ambrose: Former two division world champion Brian Viloria (36-4, 22 KOs) has been busy studying the past fights of WBC flyweight champion Roman Gonzalez (43-0, 37 KOs) in preparation for their October 17th fight on HBO pay-per-view from Madison Square Garden in New York.
Viloria, 34, has seen enough of the 28-year-old Gonzalez’s past fights to make him believe that he’s got enough in the tank to defeat him. Viloria believes that his punching power is greater than anything that Gonzalez has ever seen before.
“I’ve been watching tapes endlessly for this fight in this training camp,” Viloria said about Gonzalez to Fightnews.com. “He does a lot of things correctly. Not to give too much away in terms of strategy, I just need to come in shape. I just need to do what I have to do in the gym and be able to fight twelve rounds like it’s fighting the first round. Just let my hands go,” Viloria said.
If Viloria tries to stand up to Gonzalez and punch with him, this is going to be a short fight. Viloria has to run because he’s too old and fragile to stand up to a big puncher like Gonzalez. We saw how Juan Francisco Estrada was able to defeat Viloria two years ago in beating him by a 12 round decision.
Viloria couldn’t handle the fire power of Estrada. He simply couldn’t. A year earlier, Estrada was beaten by Gonzalez by a 12 round unanimous decision in a fight where the scores were a lot closer than the actual fight would have you believe.
Estrada couldn’t stand in the pocket against the much stronger Gonzalez, and he was forced to run from him for 12 rounds. Gonzalez stalked Estrada around the ring for 12 rounds, punishing him every time he would stop for a second. I couldn’t give Estrada one round in that fight.
It was an easy 12 round decision for Gonzalez, and a really poor way for Estrada to lose. He should have stood his ground and taken his beating and gone out on his shield instead of running the entire fight.
“I don’t think Chocolatito has ever fought a guy who can hit as hard as me and who’s a bit faster than any other fighter that he’s fought,” Viloria said. “I don’t think Chocolatito has ever fought a guy quite like me,” Viloria said.
I don’t think Viloria is going to be able to remain in this fight for long before Gonzalez knocks him clean out. It’s just a bad match-up for the aging Viloria to take.
He’s not going to be able to stand in the pocket against Gonzalez, and he doesn’t have the ability to run around the ring for 12 rounds like Estrada did in his fight against Gonzalez. Viloria is going to have to stand in there and take the beating for as long as the fight lasts, which won’t be very long.
Viloria has won his last four fights against Juan Carlos Herrera, Jose Alfredo Zuniga, Armando Vasquez and Omar Soto. None of those fighters are high quality guys, and that obviously has given Viloria a sense of ease and confidence because he doesn’t yet realize how far out of his class he’s going to be when he gets inside the ring with Gonzalez on October 17th.
“All I need to do is to come into the fight with a straight head and just let my hands go,” Viloria said. “I don’t think I could be training any harder than I’m doing already and I’m just ready – ready to go!”
It seems like Viloria is trying to convince himself that he has a chance in this fight. He doesn’t. This is going to be over with quickly. Viloria doesn’t have the youth or the survival tactics that Estrada had for him to survive 12 rounds against Gonzalez.
That’s why this fight is going to end quickly for Viloria with him getting smashed apart by Gonzalez piece by piece.
Thomas Dulmorme turns down fight against Ruslan Provodnikov
In a wise move, #11 WBA light welterweight Thomas Dulorme (22-2, 14 KOs) has rejected a fight against former WBO light welterweight champion Ruslan Provodnikov (24-4, 18 KOs), despite the fact the Russian fighter has lost 3 out of his last 4 fights.
Dulorme is coming off of a bad loss himself with him having lost to Terence Crawford last April by a 6th round knockout in a failed bid to capture the vacant WBO light welterweight title in Omaha, Nebraska.
The fight with Provodnikov would have taken place in New York on November 7th, and it would have likely given Dulorme a nice payday. Fights like that don’t come around every day, and it could be that Dulorme made a huge mistake by turning it down.
“I’m very happy with the support and affection that the fans have given me, even if I did not leave victorious against Terrence Crawford. In deference to those fans, my family, my team and of course, myself, I decided not to take this offer to fight against Provodnikov”, Dulorme said. “We must act in an intelligent and accurate manner, not rushed into combat without the time to step into the ring in top condition. We have a goal of world championship and must work accordingly toward it. I respect Provodnikov and like that fight, later we can sit down and negotiate.”
Perhaps it’s for the best that Dulorme turned the fight with Provodnikov down. With the way that Provodnikov looked last April in giving Lucas Matthysse all he could handle in a 12 round majority decision loss to the Argentina fighter, I don’t know if Dulorme would have been able to hang for long against him.
The fact of the matter is Dulorme likes to slug it out, but Provodnikov is a better slugger than him and has a better chin. Dulorme’s knockout loss to Crawford was his second knockout defeat of his career. Dulorme was stopped in the 7th round by Argentinian slugger Luis Carlos Abregu three years ago in 2012 in a fight where Dulorme was bludgeoned into submission.
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