With the "Grito de Dolores" holiday ahead of us both Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions have set up cards aiming to appeal to the massive Mexican boxing community. Whilst Golden Boy have gotten Saul Alvarez v Josesito Lopez the most exciting bout on their card is actually the bout for the WBC Featherweight title between Jhonny Gonzalez (52-7, 45) and challenger Daniel Ponce De Leon (43-4, 35).
Whilst Saul "Canelo" Alvarez may be seen as the future of Mexican boxing, Ponce De Leon and Gonzalez are both veterans, but both are veterans who have power and and excitement running through their veins, which is why I, like many others, love this bout.
The champion, Jhonny Gonzalez, first fought professionally way back in 1999 and actually started his career with 2 losses. In fact early in his career the young Gonzalez wasn't really expected to achieve a whole lot suffering 4 losses in his first 18 professional bouts. Despite this Gonzalez continued to fight on and in 2005 he scored his big breakthrough by stopping Thai Ratanachai Sor Vorapin to claim the WBO Bantamweight title.
After winning the world title Gonzalez would begin to mix with genuine world level fighters on a regular basis and scored notable wins over Marc Johnson, Fernando Montiel and Irene Pacheco. Those wins were however marred somewhat with losses to Israel Vazquez (at Super Bantamweight) and Gerry Penalosa, both by TKO as Gonzalez showed real fragility.
It didn't take long for Gonzalez to bounce back from those losses an less than 2 years later he was again fighting for a world title as he took on the very talented Japanese fighter Toshiaki Nishioka for the WBC Super Bantamweight title. Despite dropping Nishioka in the opening round Gonzalez was eventually stopped himself in round 3. Gonzalez's drive and determination saw him refusing to give up on himself and 2 years later he completely revitalised his career by stopping Hozumi Hasegawa and claiming the WBC Featherweight title, finally becoming a 2-weight world champion.
Since claiming the WBC Featherweight in April 2011 Gonzalez has made 4 world title defenses including 3 by stoppage (With only Elio Rojas managing to survive the distance). Amazingly only 3 of Gonzalez's last 26 fights have gone the schedule.
Despite his reputation as a hard hitting but fragile fighter Gonzalez is actually a genuinely talented boxer who just so happens to have incredibly heavy hands. He can box well behind the jab and has started to use his experience more to make up for his perceived fragilities. When he lands he lands hard but don't let that confuse you into thinking he's just a raw banger because he's really much more.
The challenger, Daniel Ponce De Leon is the slightly older man at 32 years old though has "only" been boxing since 2001. Like Gonzalez he has made his name by being an incredibly hard puncher in fact Ponce De Leon actually started his career with an amazing 21 straight T/KO's all of which all but a handful came in the first 5 or so rounds.
After compiling an excellent record of 24-0 (23) Ponce De Leon would step up for the first time and face Panamanian "freak" Celestino Caballero (who despite being a Super Bantamweight at the time stood at an alarming 5'11). Caballero managed to not only survive the distance with Ponce De Leon but also become the first man to defeat the Mexican banger.
Ponce De Leon would bounce back from his first career loss by swiftly climbing back up the rankings and by the end of 2005 he had claimed his first world title, the WBO Super Bantamweight title by defeating Sod Kokietgym via decision. As the WBO world champion Ponce De Leon would make 6 successful title defenses with 4 of those coming by T/KO (including opening round KO's over Sod Kokietgym and Rey Bautista) before losing his title to the then emerging Purto Rican Juan Manuel Lopez inside a round.
Following the loss to Lopez, Ponce De Leon rebuilt his record with 7 straight wins before controversially losing to Adrian Broner, and subsequently losing to Cuban star Yuriorkis Gamboa. Since then however Ponce De Leon has won his last 2 bouts (admittedly against lower level fighters) as he's continued to stay busy.
Whilst Ponce De Leon punches like a horse he has often been criticized for being incredibly limited. A few years back one commentator actually said “Well, why would you want to bother to learn to box when you can punch like that?” following a monster punch by Ponce De Leon, however in recent bouts Ponce De Leon does seem to have developed some real boxing skills of his own, whilst he'll never be Pernell Whittaker he's no longer just a crude home run hitter.
On paper this looks like an out and out shoot out. Two huge punchers capable of disconnecting an opponent from their senses and it could well be a case of whoever lands first wins, it genuinely is a fight that promises to be "blink and you miss it". Whilst fights like this may tend to favour the tougher fighter (in this case Ponce De Leon) this is actually a really, really hard call. Ponce certainly seems to have rounded his skills off in recent years but no longer seems to be the monster puncher he once was (scoring only 5 T/KO's in his last 11 bouts) whilst Jhonny stills hurts his opponents with every single shot he lands. With this in mind I'm going with Gonzalez though wouldn't be surprised if Ponce De Leon scored an early stoppage. One thing is for sure, this will not go the distance.
Prediction-Gonzalez TKO4
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