By Jim Dower: Former two division world champion Jhonny Gonzalez (63-10, 53 KOs) defeated Francisco “Dominican Boy” Contreras (30-6, 23 KOs) by a 3rd round knockout last Saturday night to win the interim WBC Latino super featherweight title at the Gimnasio Municipal “Jose Neri Santos” in Ciudad in Chihuahua, Mexico.
The 35-year-old Gonzalez knocked Contreras down three times in round 3 with left hooks to the body. The fight was stopped after the third knockdown of the round. The victory allowed Gonzalez to retain his WBC International Silver super featherweight crown.
Gonzalez controlled the fight with his powerful left hook. He was landing it a lot to the body and head of 33-year-old Contreras in the first two rounds of the fight. Contreras was able to hit Gonzalez frequently with overhand rights to the head. Gonzalez had no defense at all to the right hands that Contreras was hitting him with. The only thing that saved Gonzalez was his left hook.
Each time Contreras would start to take over the fight, Gonzalez would hit him with a left hook and back him off. The power in Gonzalez’s left hook is still quite good. Gonzalez is no longer lean and quick like he was in his best years of his career, but his punching power is still as good as it ever was. The only problem is that he gets hit too much nowadays, and he can’t afford to be taking punishment when he’s facing better opposition.
#6 WBC Gonzalez now a title shot against WBC super featherweight champion Miguel Berchelt. who has a fight against #1 WBC Takashi Miura this summer. Gonzalez has contenders ranked ahead of him in the World Boxing Council’s rankings, but he still wants a title shot.
The win for Gonzalez was his fifth consecutive since losing to Jonathan Oquendo by a 10 round majority decision in 2015. That was a rough patch for Gonzalez’s career back then, as he was stopped by Gary Russell Jr. in the 4th round in March of 2015.