News

BRIAN VILORIA STOPS HERNAN MARQUEZ

Brian Viloria stops Hernan Marquez to win unified WBA and WBO titles

CARLO PAMINTUAN, GMA News

A lot of boxing observers felt that the fight between Brian Viloria (32-3-0, 19 KOs) and Hernan Marquez (34-3-0, 25 KOs) would be a barn-burner. It turned out to be all that and then some.

Viloria floored Marquez with a counter left hook in the tenth round just as Marquez was throwing a barrage of punches. Marquez was able to beat the count but he had wobbly legs when he got back to his feet. Viloria continued to pour in the punches until Robert Garcia waved the towel in surrender.

Viloria dictated the tempo of the fight but the dangerous Marquez was always in the thick of things. Every time Viloria looked like he was about to win the fight, Marquez came back and threw a flurry of his own.

Viloria had an auspicious start in the fight as he knocked down Marquez with a counter right hand. He invested in a lot of body shots that bothered Marquez.

After the fight, Viloria admitted that they worked on targeting the body of Marquez. “The body punches slowed down Marquez, especially in the early rounds,” he said. “I could hear the crunches from my body shots.”

In the fifth round, Marquez tagged Viloria with a big right hand which momentarily staggered the former Olympian. Marquez went for the kill but Viloria calmly weathered the storm by blocking most of the punches with his gloves. After Marquez punched himself out, Viloria went on a counter-attack and floored him again with a one-two.

“I knew it looked bad but I wasn't hurt,” Viloria said. “I knew he was going to get tired.”

Marquez got his second wind in the eighth and ninth rounds. At that point, Marquez knew he needed a knockout to win so he upped his work rate. Marquez attacked carelessly in the tenth thinking that Viloria was in trouble, but he got caught with one of Viloria’s patented counter left hooks which effectively ended the fight.

“I think my left hook was too fast for him,” said Viloria after the fight. That left hook of his has been too fast for his past six opponents. This win was his third successful title defense after winning the WBO flyweight title against Julio Cesar Miranda back in July of 2011. He defended it against Giovani Segura and Omar Nino Romero also via technical knockouts.

With that big win, Viloria is now the unified WBO and WBA flyweight champion, something that has not happened in boxing in almost 50 years.

This was Viloria’s first fight with trainer Marvin Somodio in his corner. Somodio, a local trainer from Baguio’s Shape-Up Boxing Gym, was brought to the United States by Freddie Roach to help the Hall-of-Fame trainer run the Wild Card Gym.

In the undercard, Roman Gonzales (34-0-0, 28 KOs) successfully defended his WBA light flyweight title in an exciting battle against Juan Francisco Estrada (22-2-0, 18 KOs). Gonzales won via unanimous decision with the scores of 118-110 and 116-112 twice but the scores did not reflect how good the fight was.

Gonzales could step up in weight to challenge Viloria for the unified WBA and WBO titles. — BM, GMA News