By Allan Fox: Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez is fighting this month on December 23 against little known journeyman Diomel Diocos in eight round tune-up fight at the Arena, in Yokohama, Japan. The Chocolatito vs. Diocos fight will be streamed on ESPN+ at 3:55 a.m. ET, which obviously isn’t the ideal time for U.S boxing fans to see it.

Gonzalez is incredibly talented, but he’s had problems fighting at super flyweight. It’s not a good fit for him, and probably never will be. The plan for Chocolatito Gonzalez is to take the tune-up against Diocos, and then look to get a world title shot in 2020. That would be against one of these super flyweight champions:

Khalid Yafai
Jerwin Ancajas
Juan Francisco Estrada
Kazuto Ioka

This is a tune-up though for Gonzalez, so it’s not quite as big a deal as it would be if he were facing a good opponent.

Diomel Diocos has lost 3 out of his last 4 fights

The 26-year-old Diocos (14-5-3, 4 KOs) is from the Philippines, and he’s lost 3 out of his last 4 fights against lower level competition. Those were decision defeats by Diocos. Two years ago, Diocos was stopped in the 4th round by Daigo Higa. Diocos is just a journeyman level fighter, who at best, may give Chocolatito some badly needed rounds.

He’s not expected to push Gonzalez in any way, shape or form in this fight. If Diocos does give Gonzalez problems, then his management are going to need to give him more tune-ups to see if they can bring him back to where he was before.

Gonzalez (47-2, 39 KOs) hasn’t fought since stopping former WBO minimumweight champion Moises Fuentes (25-6-1, 14 KOs) in the 5th round on September 15, 2018. Chocolatito looked good in that fight, but part of the reason for that was his size advantage.

Roman Gonzalez coming off of knee surgery

The 32-year-old Gonzalez is coming off of knee surgery, and it’s kept him out of the ring for awhile now. The former pound-for-pound King Gonzalez perhaps needed a break, as he’d taken a pounding in two defeats against Srisaket Sor Rungvisai in 2017.

It was a mistake on Gonzalez’s part to agree to fight Rungvisai again, as the first fight proved that he had a bad style for him. Rungivisai is beatable against boxers, not sluggers, and Gonzalez had the wrong tools to beat him.

Both of those fights took place at super flyweight [115 lbs], which is a bad division for Chocolatito. He isn’t as dominant at 115 as he was when he fought at 105, 108 and 112. Those were weight classes that Gonzalez looked great at, but he’s not the same fighter at super flyweight.

“We felt this tuneup fight is necessary in order to land a title shot next year. But nevertheless, we are very focused on the challenge ahead this Dec. 23,” said Gonzalez’s manager Carlos Blandon to ESPN.com. “His knee is back to normal or even better,” Blandon said. “Roman is eager to showcase that his knee is in great condition after surgery.”

Chocolatito has struggled since moving up to 115

The first hint that Gonzalez was going to have problems at 115 is when he went to war with Carlos Cuadras, and took a beating from him in winning a grueling 12 round unanimous decision in September 2016. Gonzalez’s face was near unrecognizable afterwards.

In hindsight, Gonzalez should have gotten a dietician and coach to help reduce his weight so that he could move back down to 108 or 112. Those are good weight classes for Chocolatito, but he stuck it out at 115. This led to Gonzalez getting beaten in consecutive fights against Rungvisai.

Also on the ard is WBA ‘regular’ middleweight champion Ryota Murata defending his belt against #8 WBA Steven Butler.

Other fights on the card are as follows:

Ken Shiro vs. Randy Petalcorin
Moruti Mthalane vs. Akira Yaegashi
Kenshiro Teraji vs. Randy Petalcorin
Taishi Uchiyama vs. Kiyoharu Nunozaki
Jun Muto vs. Kengo Hatsushika
Teppei Saito vs. Temple Kamihara
Caliente Koyasu vs. Daiki Sakamoto