By Allan Fox: World Boxing Council World super flyweight champion Carlos “Principe” Cuadras (35-0-1, 27 KOs) successfully made weight on Friday in coming in at 114.8 pounds for his title defense against former three vision world champion Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez (45-0, 38 Kos) for their fight on Saturday night on HBO Championship Boxing from The Forum, in Inglewood, California. Gonzalez, 29, weighed in at 114.6.
This fight proves to be an interesting one for as long as it lasts. Neither of these guys have been knocked out yet, but they’ve also never fought punchers like themselves before. The main thing that Cuadras has going for him in this fight is size. He’s arguably a featherweight that is fighting out of his class in dropping down to super flyweight to dominate the division. Cuadras’ size helps him against his smaller opponents.
Gonzalez is easily the better fighter than Cuadras if all things were equal with both fighters weighing the same amount on Saturday night. They won’t be. Cuadras will likely have a huge weight advantage over Gonzalez in this fight. Unless Gonzalez can deal with Cuadras’ superior size, he’ll be losing for the first time in his career. Cuadras’s power and size has enabled him to roll over his opponents since turning pro. If Gonzalez can’t figure out a way to deal with the Mexican fighter’s size and strength, then this could be a short night on Saturday.
It’s hard to know how Cuadras would do if he were fighting in the featherweight division against guys his own size. We know that he was easily beaten by Oscar Valdez while he was an amateur, and Valdez is currently the WBO featherweight champion. If Cuadras moved up in weight to the featherweight division, he would likely lose to the top guys in that weight class.
This fight will tell the boxing world whether Gonzalez and Cuadras are as good as the amount of hype that’s out there for the two of them. They’re good fighters, but perhaps not nearly as good as their fans think they are.
Gonzalez is moving up in weight from the flyweight division, where he holds the WBC title. Gonzalez last fought in April of this year in successfully defending his WBC title in beating McWilliams Arroyo by a 12 round unanimous decision. It was Gonzalez’s fourth successful defense of his WBC title. Gonzalez looks nearly unbeatable at flyweight right now. However, he’s interested in accomplishing bigger things, which is why he’s moving up in weight to challenge the younger, bigger and stronger Cuasdras for his title. Gonzalez has a nice run going of wins over Arroyo, Brian Viloria, Edgar Sosa, Valentin Leon and Rocky Fuentes in his last five fights dating back to November 2014.
In the co-feature, junior middleweight Jesus Soto Karass weighed in at 154.4lbs for his fight against Yoshihiro Kamegai. For his part, Kamegai weighed in at 153.4lbs.This is a decent fight with nothing at stake. Neither fighter is relevant in the 154lb division and neither of them appear to be going anywhere in the future in terms of their careers.