By Jim Dower: Former 4 division world champion and number 1 pound-for-pound fighter Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez (46-1, 38 KOs) is targeting September for his next fight on HBO Championship Boxing. Gonzalez’s opponent is expected to be WBC super flyweight champion Srisaket Sor Rungvisai. Negotiations for a rematch between Gonzalez and Rungvisai are still underway. If the two sides are unable to agree in the negotiations, then Gonzalez will fight someone else in September.
Gonzalez still plans to fight in September even if he can’t fight Rungvisai, according to his promoter Tom Loeffler. It’s obviously tricky negotiations for Gonzalez and his promoters at K2 Promotions, as he’s now the challenger and not the champion in facing Rungvisai. Never the less, Gonzalez is still the far more popular fighter of the two compared to Rungvisai in the U.S.
The undercard for the Gonzalez-Runvisai II fight is expected to have WBO super flyweight champion Naoya Inoue (13-0, 11 KOs) defending his World Boxing Organization title. Inoue recently defeated Ricardo Rodriguez by a 3rd round knockout. Having Inoue on the undercard suggests that there’s a plan of having the winner of the Gonzalez vs. Rungvisai II fighting facing Inoue in a unification fight in the near future, possibly in December or early 2018.
The date for the Gonzalez vs. Rungvisai II rematch is being talked about for September 9 or September 23 on HBO Championship Boxing, which would make it either a week before or a week after the September 16th fight between Gennady Golovkin and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Gonzalez-Rungvisai would be headlining a card of their own.
Gonzalez, 29, lost his last fight to #1 WBC challenger Srisaket Sor Rungvisai by a 12 round majority decision on March 18 on the undercard of the Gennady “GGG” Golovkin vs. Danny Jacobs on HBO PPV at Madison Square Garden in New York. The judges scored the fight 114-112, 114-112 and 113-113. Many of the fans saw Gonzalez as the winner. He was fighting like a winner.
Rungvisai was just trying to preserve the early lead that he had compiled in the first 6 rounds. Boxing News 24 had Gonzalez beating Rungvisai by a narrow decision. Gonzalez was cut badly two times in the fight by head-butts from Rungvisai, who was coming forward with his head down frequently during the fight. The crown of Rungvisai was hitting Gonzalez square in the face all night long. That made it difficult for Gonzalez to come in close to throw his body shots without getting rammed in the face by the head of Rungvisai.
That was Gonzalez’s first career defeat in his 12-year pro boxing career. It was a tough way to lose. Gonzalez was the one hustling and trying to make the fight. His tired opponent Rungvisai was merely trying to survive, as he was not comfortable with the pressure Gonzalez was putting him under and especially the body punches he was hitting him with. Rungvisai was able to handle Gonzalez’s power when taking head shots, but the body shots really sapped the energy out of him. You could tell that Rungvisai did not like getting hit to the body by Gonzalez.
The judges didn’t seem to give Gonzalez too many breaks in terms of the close rounds, as they were giving the close ones to Rungvisai, Gonzalez immediately started off badly in getting knocked down by the much bigger and stronger looking Rungvisai in round 1. From there it was an uphill climb for Gonzalez, as he had problems with the size and power of the slugger from Thailand. However, in the second half of the fight, Gonzalez began to wear Rungvisai down with body shots, pressure and his work rate.
Rungvisai chose to hold frequently and move in the last 4 rounds of the contest to keep from getting worked over. The knockdown that Rungvisai scored in the 1st round was in the difference in the fight. Gonzalez still might have pulled out the victory if Rungvisai hadn’t held him so much in the last 4 rounds. The World Boxing Council has ordered a rematch between Rungvisai and Gonzalez, which could be the fight that takes place in September.
“The WBC ordered the rematch, and that’s the fight we’re looking at doing. HBO wants to air that fight,” said Gonzalez’s promoter Tom Loeffler to ESPN.com. ”The rematch is the plan but we haven’t finalized an agreement yet, but that’s the plan as of now,” Loeffler said. “We saw the first fight was and it was a tremendous fight.”
Gonzalez will need to make some changes to his game for him to have an easier time against Rungvisai. For starters, Gonzalez needs to put on some weight because he’s found himself the smaller guy in his last two fights since moving up to super flyweight last September against Carlos Cuadras. Gonzalez looks smaller than the guys he’s fighting nowadays, and he didn’t bring his punching power up with him from the flyweight division.
It’s not all that surprising that Gonzalez isn’t a knockout puncher at super flyweight because he’s already moved up 4 divisions since he turned pro in 2005 at minimumweight. Gonzalez has won world titles in each division he’s fought in, but he clearly is now fighting in a division that he’s going to be able to dominate like he did in the previous weight classes he fought at. The way for Gonzalez to beat Rungvisai without taking a lot of punishment is to fight him the way that Carlos Cuadras did in their May 2015 fight.
Cuadras used movement and darting in and out attacks to get the better of Rungvisai. Cuadras didn’t even try and slug with Rungvisai, because he knew that it would be a bad idea to brawl because of his punching power. Cuadras ended up winning the fight by an 8 round technical decision after being cut over his left eye from a head-butt. Rungvisai’s head was coming in contact with Cuadras’ face frequently during the fight.
Rungvisai ended up losing a point for the use of the head. Cuadras predicted that Rungvisai would beat Gonzalez. Cuadras seemed to know that Gonzalez would lose if he didn’t make changes to his fighting style by choosing to box Rungvisai. Sure enough, that’s what happened. Gonzalez never even tried to box Rungvisai. He stood in front of Rungvisai the entire fight and fought his style of brawling, and he was even getting the better of him in the last 4 rounds. Unfortunately, Rungvisai had built up a big lead in the first 6 rounds that proved to be insurmountable.
Gonzalez would do well to move back down to flyweight if he wants to dominate like he’d done in the past. I don’t think Gonzalez has any intention of doing that. There are bigger money fights for the 29-year-old Nicaraguan Gonzalez at super flyweight than there is if he moves back down to flyweight, which is a pretty empty division as far as big names.
If Gonzalez can find a way to neutralize the size and power of Rungvisai in September, he should beat him and move on to bigger fights against Inoue and Cuadras. There’s still a lot of interest in a rematch between Gonzalez and Cuadras in the boxing world. Those two had a big rivalry going already. Gonzalez out-boxed Cuadras last September in winning a 12 round unanimous decision. However, Cuadras landed a lot of heavy power shots to the head of Gonzalez’s face that had him looking pretty beaten up by the end of the fight.