(Photo credit: WBC Al Montiel) By Dan Ambrose: WBC featherweight champion Abner Mares (26-0-1, 14 KO’s) will be facing Jhonny Gonzalez (54-8, 46 KO’s) in a fight that will have a predictable ending at the StubHub Center in Carson, California. Mares will knock Gonzalez out by the 6th round, possibly earlier if he throws some body shots. Gonzalez can dish it out, but sure can’t take it.
The fight will be televised on SHOWTIME, along with another title fight matching WBC super bantamweight champion Victor Terrazas (37-2-1, 21 KO’s) defending his title against former IBF bantamweight champion Leo Santa Cruz (24-0-1, 14 KO’s) in the co-feature bout. This fight too has a predictable ending. Terrazas is going to get taken out at some point tonight by the bigger punching Santa Cruz.
This card would be much better if they had the opponents switched around with Gonzalez facing Terrazas and Mares fighting Santa Cruz. Those are MUCH better fights than the mismatches that Golden Boy has set up here. Jhonny Gonzalez was recently beaten by Mares’ last victim Daniel Ponce De Leon by an 8th round technical decision in a fight that Gonzalez was getting beaten up in. I know styles make fights, but it’s not interesting knowing that Gonzalez was beaten by a fighter that Mares just dominated.
Gonzalez has a lot of wins on his resume, but with very few of the wins coming against good fighters. If you take away all the scrubs that Gonzalez has faced during his 14-year pro career, you’d have maybe 5 or 6 fighters on his entire resume that you could call good. The problem is Gonzalez lost to pretty much all of them. Gonzalez has losses to Toshiaki Nishioka [3rd round TKO], Gerry Penalosa [7th round KO], Israel Vazquez [10th round TKO], Ricardo Vargas [7th round technical decision], Vargas [10 round unanimous decision defeat], and Daniel Ponce De Leon [8th round technical decision].
After Mares knocks Gonzalez out, and Santa Cruz destroys Terrazas tonight, I hope Golden Boy can match Mares vs. Santa Cruz, because that’s much better fight than the mismatch tonight between Marez and Gonzalez.
I wouldn’t have minded seeing a Mares vs. Gonzalez fight years ago before Gonzalez had been knocked out by Israel Vazquez, Nishioka, and Penalosa. But he’s been beaten too many times, and it’s just not interesting to see Gonzalez get beaten yet again.
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