Home Boxing News Roman Gonzalez vs Wisaksil Wangek Fight Preview

Roman Gonzalez vs Wisaksil Wangek Fight Preview

Wisaksil Wangek (aka Srisaket Sor Rungvisai) and Roman Gonzalez will clash in a highly-anticipated rematch on September 9 as part of the ‘Super Fly’ card, televised on HBO.

The pair met in New York’s Madison Square Garden in March of this year on the undercard of Gennady Golovkin’s big middleweight title clash against Danny Jacobs. On that occasion Wangek pulled off a stunning upset win over the consensus pound-for-pound king. It all started off well for Wangek who stunned Gonzalez early in their first meeting with a chopping right hook to the upper chest region that dropped the Nicaraguan heavily. Gonzalez rose unsteadily and soon after, sustained a cut that put the tough Thai fighter very much in the driving seat. However, Gonzalez appeared to box his way back in to the contest and dragged himself ahead on many reporters’ scorecards, including HBO duo Eric Raskin and Kieran Mulvaney.

BoxNation presenter Steve Bunce, on the other hand, thought that Wangek had done enough and so did judges Glenn Feldman and Julie Lederman, who both put in scores of 114-112 in favour of the new champion, overruling Waleska Roldan’s 113-113 drawn scorecard. Even if Gonzalez had scraped the win, he had started to look a little more human, similar to in his previous encounter against Carlos Cuadras (who also features on the Super Fly card, against former Gonzalez victim Juan Francisco Estrada).

Prior to this first defeat Gonzalez had racked up 46 wins with 38 knockouts and had found a way on to HBO cards supporting Golovkin while sliding over from being viewed solely as the hardcore fans’ best kept secret and in to a mainstream fighter. ‘Chocolatito’ ascended the ranks as a heavy puncher who was able to switch from defence to attack almost at the same time and had won multiple world titles at four different weights. A possible huge lower weight fight with Japan’s Naoya Inoue was being lined up, but Wangek had other ideas and took the sheen off Gonzalez’s record.

This fight, along with the entire Super Fly card, simply cannot fail to live up to expectations. Not only are some of the premier fighters from the very lowest weights involved but the venue for the show will be the iconic StubHub Center in South California.

Promoter Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions said: “I have to give a great deal of credit to the six promoters I worked with to put this event together; Teiken Promotions, Nakornloung Promotion, Ohashi Promotions, Salita Promotions, Promociones del Pueblo and Zanfer Promotions. The cooperative spirit of all parties was the key in putting together this outstanding, world-class international card.”

30-year-old Wangek came into the first fight with Gonzalez as a relative unknown, outside of informed boxing circles. After beating Jose Salgado for the vacant WBC Silver super-flyweight bauble in 2015 he had to wait for his chance at a world title and kept busy defeating a string of lesser fighters, including three consecutive debutants, prior to his big opportunity. His four losses spanned the years, coming in 2014 to Carlos Cuadras, in 2010 to Kenji Oba and he had already lost his first and second fights. On his debut, Wangek was knocked out by Akira Yaegashi who went on to become IBF light-flyweight champion, so no shame there. The Thai drew his third bout so was 0-2-1 after three. Quite the remarkable career turnaround to end up dethroning a pound-for-pound king.

I predict that Gonzalez will gain revenge in this contest and take back his WBC super-flyweight title. I believe he was gradually working Wangek out in the first contest as the end neared, but that’s not to say it wasn’t a razor thin result and that Wangek didn’t deserve the glory. Even if Gonzalez does prevail, I do suspect that his time at the top is coming to an end. He’s been a terrific fighter and enjoyed a long and distinguished career but he does have a tendency to blow up in size in between fights and is finding the current higher weight classes just a little tougher to negotiate.

The promotional and television entities are setting him up for a big fight with ‘Monster’ Inuoe or a rematch with Estrada and then we could see ‘Chocolatito’ soon hang the gloves up possibly. Either way, I expect him to defeat Wangek on a close, competitive unanimous decision here, with three scores around the 115-113 region exemplifying the tight
nature of the second contest.