By Dan Ambrose: The idea behind #1 WBC Carlos Cuadras and WBC super flyweight champion Roman Gonzalez both fighting on the same card on March 18 is that if they both win, they’ll face each other in a rematch.
Cuadras (35-1-1, 27 KOs) isn’t sure whether Gonzalez (46-0, 38 KOs) will fight him again, but he’s hoping he does. Cuadras will be fighting Mexican David Carmona (20-3-5, 8 KOs) in a 10 round fight on the undercard of the Gennady “GGG” Golovkin fight on HBO pay-per-view.
For his part, “Chocolatito” Gonzalez (46-0, 38 KOs) will be defending his title against #2 WBC Srisaket Sor Rungvisai (41-4-1, 38 KOs) in the co-feature bout on the card. Cuadras already beat Rungvisai by an 8th round technical decision on March 31, 2014. It was a tough fight for Cuadras, who was cut over the left eye from clash of heads causing the fight to go to the scorecards.
Cuadras won the fight by the scores 78-73, 77-74 and 77-75. It was very close though, as Cuadras refused to stand and fight. He was moving the entire time, and looked worried and unwilling to fight Rungvisai. Cuadras thinks that Gonzalez will have problems with Rungvisai’s punching power, because he himself did.
I don’t think Gonzalez will. I don’t see him running from Rungvisai the way that Cuadras did. If not for the cut that Cuadras suffered, he might have wound up losing the fight to Rungvisai, because he wasn’t standing and willing to fight that fighter from Thailand. Cuadras was running from him. That’s where Cuadras went wrong in his 12 round decision loss to Gonzalez on September 10 last year.
Instead standing and fighting, he tried to move a lot and steal rounds with flurries rather than fighting in a consistent pattern. Gonzalez ended up winning the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 115-113, 116-112 and 117-111. The most accurate score of those three scores was the 117-111 score for Gonzalez.
“I’ll be ready,” said Cuadras to ringtv.com. “I just hope that Gonzalez, if we’re both to win, that he doesn’t back out of this fight. I believe that Gonzalez realizes that, in the rematch, he can’t win. I’m going to knock him out…I think that Gonzalez understands that the next time we meet, it will be round thirteen, and I will pick up where I left off.”
Gonzalez won the 12th round against Cuadras by outworking him. If that’s all Cuadras can hope for is a continuation of the pace of their previous fight, then it’s not going to end badly for him. The only thing that is unclear about the rematch is whether Gonzalez’s skin will hold up from the punches from Cuadras. Gonzalez’s face was really lumped up by Cuadras’ shots last September. If Gonzalez suffers a cut, then Cuadras might be able to win the fight based off that rather than him scoring a traditional knockout.
Cuadras could have a tough time getting past the 25-year-old Carmona on March 18. He needs to keep his focus entirely on that fight, and making sure he looks good in winning. If Cuadras runs around the ring like he did against Rungvisai, he could disappoint a lot of boxing fans that are paying to see the fight card.
Cuadras needs to not only beat Carmona, but also look good in doing so, because he and Gonzalez are both going to be competing with one another in terms of wanting to look good in their respective fights. For Gonzalez, he naturally looks good each time he fights because he presses he action against his opposition. He doesn’t run around the ring like Cuadras does, and he does try and steal rounds with flurries.
Gonzalez fights in a consistent manner for the full three minutes of each round. Cuadras fights more like Saul Canelo Alvarez in fighting in brief spurts rather than for the full three minutes of each round. Carmona is coming off of a 12 round unanimous decision loss to WBO World super flyweight champion Naoya Inoue on May 8 last year.
Carmona gave Inoue a lot of problems for the full 12 rounds in pushing a fast pace and landing a lot of shots. Inoue ended up winning the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 118-109, 116-111 and 118-109. It was probably the toughest fight of Inoue’s young career at this point. Carmona pushed a fast pace an made Inoue fight hard for the full 12 rounds.
Cuadras wasn’t that impressed with Roman Gonzalez despite losing the fight and being outworked by him. Cuadras says that Gonzalez didn’t hit as hard as he thought he would, and he was surprised that he was able to land his shots as easily as he did. Unfortunately for Cuadras, he used too much movement, and didn’t want to fight for the full three minutes of each round. Once Gonzalez realize that Cuadras was unable to fight hard, he then stayed close to him and pounded him with one punch after another. Cuadras fought like a lazy fighter that didn’t have the engine to fight hard for any length of time for some reason.
“Nothing really surprised me because I’ve studied him before,” said Cuadras about Gonzalez. “During the fight, when I would feint, and then throw the jab, I would connect. Also what surprised me (is) that he didn’t hit as hard as everyone said he would hit, so, those are the couple things that surprised me.”
The reason Cuadras was able to hit Gonzalez was because the Nicaraguan fighter was on top of him the entire time. Gonzalez wanted to make it exciting for the boxing fans by pushing a fast pace so that he could try and score a knockout while entertaining the fans. Cuadras had other ideas. He was trying to run around the ring to avoid the pressure from Gonzalez, and this kept him from being able to win the fight.
The close scores from two of the judges were way off from the fight that actually took place. Gonzalez clearly won the fight by at least five to six rounds. It wasn’t a close fight despite Gonzalez looking lumped up. It’s just that Gonzalez’s punches didn’t do the same damage to Cuadras’ face, but he still was landing a massive amount of shots to the head of Cuadras.
It’s going to be interesting to see if Cuadras stands his ground against Carmona. He’s not a big puncher by any means. It’s going to look funny if Cuadras decides to run from Carmona like he was doing against Gonzalez and Rungvisai. I would like to think that Cuadras will stand and fight, but I don’t think that’s his style. He likes to move around the ring and fight hard for brief spurts in each round. Like I said, Cuadras is a lot like Canelo with the way he needs to rest a lot.
Gonzalez may have a harder time in his fight against the 30-year-old Rungvisai, because he’s not going to run from him the way Cuadras did. Gonzalez is going to be meeting Rungvisai head on and looking to knock him out with his combination punching. It figures to be a much more exciting fight than Cuadras’ fight against Carmona. Gonzalez may indeed have a really hard time against Rungvisai, but at least the boxing fans will get to see a good fight instead of a bunch of running like they’ll probably see in the Cuadras fight.