Will Rising Star Roman Gonzalez Ever Move the Needle at Flyweight?
Boxing’s biggest and baddest little guy, Roman Gonzalez, made his HBO debut over the weekend to rave reviews among those in the hardcore fight fan community, but will the flyweight ever move the needle enough among mainstream fight fans to become a real star in the sport?
There’s certainly a lot to like about him as a fighter.
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Gonzalez, the lineal flyweight champion, is undefeated in 43 professional prizefights. The 27-year-old from Nicaragua has already won legitimate world titles in three different weight classes, and he has been considered by many to be among the pound-for-pound elite fighters in the sport since at least last year when he defeated Akira Yaegashi for the WBC flyweight title.
Gonzalez is ranked as the No. 2 pound-for-pound fighter in the sport by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board. He was listed at No. 3 in the last published Bleacher Report rankings, but after Saturday’s Round 2 knockout win over Edgar Sosa, he'll likely move up when the next list is published.
Those who had not seen the diminutive destroyer before were in for a real treat when Gonzalez was perhaps not so coincidentally featured alongside the HBO boxing attraction he most greatly resembles.
The increasing number of fans who have become smitten with stalking middleweight monster Gennady Golovkin witnessed a smaller version of Golovkin on the WBA middleweight champion’s undercard Saturday at The Forum in Inglewood, California. Golovkin knocked out Willie Monroe Jr. in Round 6 to maintain his stature as one of boxing's best attractions.
But smaller doesn’t necessarily mean lesser in this case. If Golovkin is noted as the premier pressure fighter in boxing today, it’s only because people tend to pay more attention to middleweights than they do fighters of Gonzalez’s stature.
Because, in truth, Gonzalez might even be more Golovkin than Golovkin himself.
The flyweight’s footwork is better, he’s accomplished more as a professional, and he’s done so in three different weight classes. Moreover, he has the better resume right now and seems to have the upper hand in obtaining even more big fights in the future.
But Golovkin, age 33 from Kazakhstan, has clearly moved the needle among American fight fans. Will Gonzalez follow suit?
As great as Chocolatito is, he has an uphill battle if he hopes to attain anything close to Golovkin’s star power. Fair or not, fans typically care little about fighters as small as Gonzalez. In fact, most mainstream American fight fans don’t even bother paying attention to fights contested below welterweight, much less those eight divisions down at flyweight.
But fret not, flyweight fans, because Gonzalez does have several significant things going for him, too.
For one, there is no shortage of great opponents for Gonzalez in and around the flyweight division. A rematch between him and Juan Francisco Estrada, whom Gonzalez defeated in 2012 for Estrada’s WBA junior flyweight title, is one of the more anticipated rematches in boxing.
Since being handed his only loss, Estrada has won six straight.
Even better, a potential bout between Gonzalez and undefeated Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue is as close to a “superfight” as fighters in the lighter weight classes can get.
Just 22 years old, Inoue has already won world titles at junior lightweight and junior bantamweight. A bout between Gonzalez and Inoue would match two of the best fighters in the world in a way that would likely produce a much better in-ring product than the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao debacle fans witnessed on May 2.
Where Mayweather-Pacquiao failed, Gonzalez-Inoue would deliver.
And flyweight contenders abound. Amnat Ruenroeng, Brian Viloria and Kazuto Ioka could keep Gonzalez busy while he waits for Estrada or Inoue bouts to emerge, and the fan-friendly style the flyweight forces on his opponents would keep the folks over at HBO happy in the meantime, too.
And don’t forget once-beaten Chinese star Zou Shiming. What the two-time Olympic gold medalist lacks in professional credentials, he more than makes up for in drawing power. A win or two for Shiming could eventually lure Gonzalez there for a lucrative bout, too.
No, flyweights don’t usually quite move the needle, but it’s not their fault. It’s just the way boxing works. Look no further than comments by professional fighter and color commentator BJ Flores before Gonzalez took center stage on Saturday night:
But maybe all that’s just sour grapes, too. After all, Flores’ physical stature (he’s a light heavyweight) has given him no more ability to attract a following than he seems to suggest Gonzalez is capable of attaining.
And with HBO seemingly behind the best flyweight to come along in boxing in a long, long time—with the myriad interesting matchups on the horizon for him and a fan-friendly, aggressive style to boot—there’s no reason to believe Gonzalez can’t become a star attraction in boxing, the type of which Flores could only dream about at this point in his career.
Yes, the needle is heavier for flyweights to move, but if anyone that size can muster the strength to do it, it’s Gonzalez.
Kelsey McCarson is a member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board. He also contributes to The Sweet Science and Boxing Channel.
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