Saturday, April 20, 2024  |

News

Chocolatito to face mandatory Srisaket March 18 at MSG

Photo by: Naoki Fukuda
Fighters Network
10
Jan

Roman (Chocolatito) Gonzalez will ride shotgun again with Gennady Golovkin.

Gonzalez (46-0, 38 knockouts) is set to defend his WBC junior bantamweight title against mandatory challenger Srisaket Sor Rungvisai March 18 as the co-feature to Golovkin’s middleweight championship against Danny Jacobs at Madison Square Garden on HBO PPV ($54.95), promoter Tom Loeffler told a small group of reporters in New York on Tuesday.

Gonzalez, THE RING’s top pound-for-pound fighter, was negotiating for a rematch with former titleholder Carlos Cuadras, whom Gonzalez won a hotly contested unanimous decision against in September after moving up in weight. But the talks broke off and Gonzalez, a four-division champion, will turn to his mandatory, Rungvisai (41-4-1, 38 KOs), a former 115-pound titleholder who lost to Cuadras by an eighth-round technical decision after Cuadras suffered an accidental cut in 2014.  It will be Gonzalez’s fifth time appearing on the same card as Golovkin. Loeffler said the winner of Gonzalez-Srisaket “has to fight Cuadras in his next fight.”

Cruiserweight titleholder Oleksandr Usyk (11-0) is also in talks to possibly appear on the card, Loeffler said. As for now, only one other fight has been finalized for March 18. “We’re going to announce now that Chocolatito and Srisaket are going to fight as the co-feature,” Loeffler told reporters. “That’s Chocolatito’s mandatory defense for his WBC 115-pound title. It will be the fifth time that GGG and Chocolatito are on the same show. I feel it’s the best combination in boxing when you have the two best pound-for-pound boxers. Although Srisaket isn’t that well known in America, people are saying he’s much more dangerous that Cuadras and we saw Chocolatito had a very tough fight winning the title against Cuadras. It will be both Gennady’s and Chocolatito’s toughest fights of their career.”



SIGN UP TO GET RING NEWS ALERTS