Roman Gonzalez Ready to Audition for Role of Boxing's Top Attraction
He’s the height of a typical 13-year-old American boy.
And the weight of a supermodel who’s just scarfed a hot fudge sundae.
Nevertheless, writers, promoters and network executives of all sizes will tell you that Nicaraguan flyweight Roman Gonzalez is about to become boxing’s next big thing.
In fact, no less an authority than Peter Nelson, vice president of sports programming for HBO, said that after just one appearance on the premium cable giant’s air—for a two-round TKO of Edgar Sosa in May—the buzz around Chocolatito shows signs of gargantuan capacity.
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Perhaps even Manny Pacquiao or Gennady Golovkin capacity.
“One of the wonderful things about boxing (is) that it’s hard to predict how much appeal any given fighter with their talent can eventually achieve,” Nelson told Bleacher Report. “I don’t think anyone could have predicted that Manny Pacquiao would have achieved the kind of stardom that he eventually achieved. I don’t think anyone had really predicted—apart from Gennady Golovkin, Tom Loeffler and their team—Gennady would ascend to become the next pay-per-view attraction.
“It’s one of the great things to see. I think they‘re going to continue to take the best fights possible and the fans will have a referendum as to how big or small his fanbase will reach.”
Their next voting chance comes Saturday at 9 p.m. when the 112-pound phenomenon rides shotgun to Golovkin in the penultimate bout of a four-fight PPV show from Madison Square Garden.
Gonzalez faces Brian Viloria in the 13th championship bout of a decadelong career that’s already yielded 37 knockouts, three world titles and, most recently, recognition by Ring Magazine as the first pound-for-pound kingpin of the sport’s post-Floyd Mayweather Jr. era.
It’s been a heady, if not unforeseeable climb for the 28-year-old, initially guided in the ring by revered countryman Alexis Arguello, who died in 2009. Gonzalez still refers to the late Arguello as a hero, mentor and friend and referenced the relationship again upon winning his third weight-class belt—joining Arguello as the only Nicaraguans to do so—13 months ago in Tokyo.
“It is a dream come true,” Gonzalez told RingTV.com. “I know he is happy watching me from heaven.”
Initially a tiny soccer devotee, Gonzalez began earning boxing chops in the mid-1990s around the time Arguello threw the final paid punch of his 85-fight career. The ex-featherweight, junior lightweight and lightweight champion would orchestrate amateur bouts several times each month, allowing Gonzalez to hone skills that vaulted him past three prior generations of moderate familial ring success.
He was ultimately unbeaten across 88 amateur fights, won a gold medal at the 2004 Central American championships and had his first pro fight on July 1, 2005—two weeks after his 18th birthday.
These days, Gonzalez’s manager still gives Arguello full credit for what his young charge became.
“He showed Roman how to train. He saw a diamond in the rough, and he was able to polish him,” Carlos Blandon told Mark Butcher of BoxingMonthly.com. “So Arguello was the one who really made Roman Gonzalez.”
Gonzalez captured the first in a string of domestic and regional title belts in just his ninth pro outing, took his skills outside Nicaragua for the first time in fight No. 15 and became a full-fledged world champion six fights later by stopping Yutaka Niida in four rounds to win WBA honors at 105 pounds.
He graduated from mini flyweight champ to light flyweight champ—a gap of three pounds—within three years and then bridged the subsequent four-pound gap to flyweight with the aforementioned win in 2014.
It was amid that title leapfrogging, Nelson said, that Gonzalez became a down-the-road commodity.
“He’s been on everyone’s radar for years. It was just a matter of time, timing and the right partnership coming about,” he said. “And to that end much credit is owed to Tom Loeffler, the managing director at K2, and Mr. Honda of Teiken Promotions, who both worked together under the Golovkin fight last May at the Forum to ensure an opportunity where this top-tier talent would be able to be seen. It is a wonderful pairing between the two of them.
“Not only are both these fighters gifted, Golovkin and Gonzalez, but they’re both willing to fight anyone. Neither guy has ever stepped away from a challenge. Those are the kinds of fighters that the fans embrace the most.”
While they’ll weigh in 48 pounds apart, the tandem's in-ring styles are somewhat similar.
Like Golovkin, Gonzalez accentuates his offense with sound footwork, prudent movement and pristine balance. He uses those qualities to keep opponents square and in range for punches, which come in fast, hard combinations. He limits escape routes by cutting off the ring and ultimately manages to get inside for decisive punishment—though his means come more from finesse and less by brute force.
And as much as a guy can look gentle while being paid to hit people, he pulls that off, too.
Gonzalez added a layer of benevolence to his halting of Sosa by immediately going to the fallen 35-year-old’s side and checking on his condition following the intervention of referee Wayne Hedgpeth.
It’s no surprise then that Loeffler also sees a successful trajectory after Saturday.
“He is a superstar because he brings that it factor and excitement in the ring with him that makes boxing fans gravitate to him and want to watch his fights,” he told Bleacher Report. “I see his career path as Chocolatito becoming one of the most marketable and successful boxers in the sport.”
Nelson said that while HBO didn’t have a definite plan for Gonzalez to step out and headline his own show, there’s plenty of reason to believe he can follow Pacquiao’s lead and smash the old stereotype that American viewers won’t gravitate toward a smaller fighter from another country.
The Filipino debuted on the network with a sensational stoppage of Lehlo Ledwaba in 2001 and impressed his way into big events with Marco Antonio Barrera and Juan Manuel Marquez within three years.
But while Pacquiao eventually generated much of his buzz by capturing titles across 42 pounds' worth of weight classes, Nelson said the path for Gonzalez needn’t follow the exact same blueprint.
“There’s no replicable path to what creates a star in this sport that is certain,” he said. “In Roman’s case, he’s 28 years old, and what you see is that he’s in a division with a lot of great fights to be seen, a lot of great fights he’s already been in, and those fights can be pursued. And I think there are certain fights where there are rematches that would have tremendous appeal and there are certain fights that could be made down the line that are new fights and compelling fights that can be built.”
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