What are your thoughts? What's next for both fighters?
My thoughts are I could've seen Gonzalez finding a way to win, maybe hurting and taking out a tired Mares late. MAYBE outboxing him to decision.
Gonzalez is an old 31, but he's always been a talented boxer w/ ridiculous power, you can see that just by his KO ratio.
More likely Mares was gonna get to Jhonny's weak chin eventually though.
First round KO for Jhonny? GTFO, it was ridiculous. I'm very happy for him, I've always liked Jhonny and he's made great fights in his career.
I'm not sure what's next for both guys. Maybe Jhonny gets a rematch w/ Ponce De Leon? A rematch is always there w/ Mares.
It's hard for me to say b/c I don't know what the situation is w/ Gonzalez, if he's w/ GB or what. I'm sure GB has options on him now though, and I can't really think of an attractive fight for him besides a rematch w/ either Mares or PDL.
I thought it was an early stoppage. There was only about 8 seconds left in the round when the referee stopped it. Mares was badly hurt and maybe he wouldn't have beaten the count, but as an undefeated world champion, he deserved the opportunity to be able to try to get back up and have the 60 seconds to recover in between rounds.
Great victory for Gonzalez, but I thought Mares was not given the opportunity to recover that he had earned as an undefeated champion.
It was certainly unexpected but not all that shocking. Mares is a top fighter but I've never considered him to be an elite fighter even with his resume or workload.
A small setback for Mares, he's still one of the top fighters in the division. I hop Johnny gets the recognition he deserves. I'd like to see a rematch before they go about fighting other guys.
It's bound to happen. Mares just got lucky in facing a physically big and big punching but comparatively inferior skills-wise Ponce de Leon in his first fight at featherweight, a title fight at that which he won surprisingly by easy TKO. When it was announced that former champion Jhonny Gonzales would be his next foe, I thought Gonzales who is a very good technical fighter with a big punch would give him not only problem but a huge threat with his high KO win rate. I thought that Gonzales had learned his lesson in under estimating smaller foes as he did in suffering a shock 7th round body shot KO loss to Gerry Penalosa in a WBO bantamweight title defense bout he was winning some years back.
And indeed he has come back strong from that shock defeat by winning the featherweight crown beating Hosumi Hasegawa but losing the same by technical decision to De Leon. And now he is back as WBC champion.
What's next for Gonzales? I think a choice defense against Japan's Satoshi Hisono or Nicholas Walters would do as he waits for the winner of the projected eliminator between Mares and Leo Santa Cruz who kayoed Victor Terrazas for the WBC super bantamweight crown in the companion main event of his fight with Mares.
Golden Boy is reportedly pursuing still a fight between Mares and Santa Cruz.
great finish by gonzalez . i never really brought into mares as a top 10p4p fighter and thought he was overrated a bit but what a left hook to start to down fall
My thoughts? Holy crap, I thought Mares was elite and he got beat that easily!
What are your thoughts? What's next for both fighters?
