By Jim Maltzman: Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez (50-2, 41 KOs) labored to a 12 round unanimous decision in defending his WBA super flyweight title against #3 WBA Israel Gonzalez (25-4, 11 KOs) on Friday night in a fight at the TV Azteca Studios in Mexico City, Mexico.
Roman, 33, used his attack-oriented fighting style of throwing nonstop punches without breathers to defeat the younger lion Israel.
The scores were 118-110, 116-112, and 117-111. Boxing News 24 had it 116-112 for Chocolatito. He did enough to turn back the threat from Israel. Still, it wasn’t the commanding victory that Chocolatito needed to attract more interest in his rematch with Juan Francisco Estrada in early next year on DAZN.
Let’s say that Roman did enough to earn the victory and not focus too much on his less than dominating performance.
On the positive side, Chocolatito showed his old form in throwing many punches and adapting well to Israel’s early attempts to box from the outside. Chocolatito cut off the ring well early and didn’t let the taller 5’6″ Israel box him the way he wanted to from the outside.
Israel was nailing the 5’3″ Chocolatito with shots when he was coming forward, and he was forced to use his jab to get in close. When Chocolatito did get in close, he effectively worked the body and head of Israel.
Roman made a mistake by focusing too much on throwing punches upstairs to the head of Israel. The shots that Roman did land to the head of Israel weren’t having any effect on him.
What Chocolatito needed to throw more to the body because that would have worn Israel down a lot faster, and he might have knocked him out.
In the first six rounds, Israel was effective against Chocolatito when he was in the ring’s center, using his jab to catch him repeatedly. At the start of the second half of the contest, Israel began to fight more with his back against the ropes, looking to catch Roman with counters.
Israel looked tired, but it was clearly a strategy that he felt would work for him. At times, it did help Israel as he was catching Roman with some nice counters and big uppercuts.
But it ended up helping Chocolatito a lot more, seeing that he had a stationary target, and he was able to get in close and unload on Israel with shots. There was no way that Israel was going to be able to match Chocolatito’s high work rate.
So it was a crazy idea for him to fight off the ropes, but he’s a young fighter, so it’s understandable. If Israel’s boxing IQ were higher, he would have stayed in the center of the ring and kept Roman at the end of his punches.
All in all, it was a decent effort from Chocolatito. He did what he had to do for him to get the victory and successfully defend his WBA 115-lb title. But if you’re asking if the performance from Chocolatito was good enough to predict a positive outcome in his rematch with Estrada next year, you can’t say it was.
Chocolatito didn’t fight well enough to predict a win against Estrada or in a rematch with Srisaket Sor Rungvisai.
What was impressive about Israel Gonzalez tonight is the way he seemed to learn from Chocolatito. Towards the end of the fight, Israel increased his punch output and matching what Chocolatito was doing. It looked like he was learning from the great. However, when Chocolatito would turn up his offense, Israel couldn’t stay in there with him. He had back off and go to the ropes to cover up.