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BRIAN Viloria will be gunning for a world title on October 17 (October 18, Manila time) when he faces flyweight champion Roman ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez at the Madison Square Garden in New York.
ESPN.com’s Dan Rafael reported the fight was formally announced on Tuesday by K2 Promotions and Teiken Promotions.
Viloria (36-4, 22 knockouts) said the fight against Gonzales, who will stake his World Boxing Council (WBC) and The Ring Magazine titles, will be his ‘biggest challenge.’
“I've fought and won on the world's biggest stages against the best of the best. I've prepared my whole life to win at every level of competition from world amateur titles to the Olympic Games to professional world titles.
“And this fight against Roman Gonzalez is likely to be my biggest challenge yet. But it's Roman's biggest challenge too. This is the realization of my dreams and I will make the most of it on fight night,” said Viloria.
“I applaud Roman for accepting this fight. Together we will give boxing fans something special - something they can talk about for a very long time,” said the boxer known as ‘The Hawaiian Punch.’
The Viloria-Gonzales fight will co-feature the middleweight unification title bout between Gennady Golovkin and David Lemieux to be shown on HBO pay-per-view.
Viloria will be going for his fifth consecutive win. His last fight was a first-round knockout victory over Omar Soto last July.
“I know Brian Viloria is a great (former) champion and it will be a hard fight, but I am ready for the challenge. I have faith that God will give me the strength to keep training and be able to give all my fans my best fight ever,” said Gonzales, undefeated in 43 fights with 37 knockouts.
Gonzales was coming off a knockout victory over Edgar Sosa last May at The Forum in Inglewood, California.
“His performance at the Forum in May was extraordinary and made for a terrific pairing. With Roman defending his title against former world champion Brian Viloria, one of the best flyweights in the world, fans in the arena and those watching on HBO pay-per-view will see an outstanding battle as the lead-in to Golovkin versus Lemieux,” K2 Promotions managing director Tom Loeffler added.
Viloria claimed the World Boxing Organization (WBO) flyweight crown against Julio Cesar Miranda last July 2011. After winning the World Boxing Association (WBA) belt against Hernan Marquez via knockout in the 10th round in November of 2012, Viloria lost his belts to Juan Francisco Estrada in Macau last April 2013.