Ahas or Alas for Chocolatito?

ON THE same day that middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin was trading leather with IBF welterweight champ Kell Brook who had moved up two weight classes, the sport's reigning pound -for-pound king Roman Gonzales was also fighting to maintain his elite status.

"Chocolatito" himself had also moved up in weight to face off against Carlos Cuadras who held the WBC diadem.

THE FIGHT. Typically, Gonzales came out firing and pressuring his opponent despite being the naturally smaller man.

However, the undefeated Cuadras proved to be tougher than expected and gave as good as he got and Gonzales' face was marked by the middle rounds.

Gonzales was undeterred and managed to cut Cuadras under his right eye by the ninth round.

Still, despite constantly fighting off his backfoot, Cuadras was landing and the swelling on Gonzales' eyes (with the right almost shut at the end of the fight ) was damning proof of his workrate.

But Gonzales was the aggressor and won majority of the rounds by bringing the fight to Cuadras.

The scores of 117-111, 116-112, 115113 all in favor of Gonzales were pretty accurate, although I did come across a few post-fight grumblings on the internet that the Mexican did enough to win the fight.

AHAS OR ALAS? Those of you who follow local boxing know that our very own Donnie " Ahas" Nietes (38-1, 22 KOs) has long targetted the tough mauler from Nicaragua.

He has even recently moved up to flyweight in the hopes of landing that career-defining fight against Gonzales.

This Sunday, his litmus test at his new weight class will be against former world champion Edgar Sosa and by no means is the outcome of this fight a foregone conclusion.

The hard-punching Sosa once fought Gonzales and succumbed via TKO in the 2nd round , and perhaps how "Ahas" performs against Sosa will be a useful metric in a potential Gonzales fight.

Another Pinoy champion who also has his eye on Gonzales is John Reil Casimero (23-3, 15 KOs), fresh off a stoppage win against British challenger Char- lie Edwards last week in a defense of his IBF flyweight crown.

Casimero desperately wants a crack at Gonzales (46-0, 38 KOs) and was quoted as saying he will knock him out.

This will be an interesting contrast of styles should Gonzales face off against any one of these Pinoy warriors.

Against Nietes , Gonzales will be fighting a clever, counter-puncher with a cerebral approach to winning.

Gonzales will need to catch Nietes and maintain a frenetic pace while the latter will have to avoid getting caught. It would be an interesting battle of game-plans.

Casimero on the other hand would not be too diffucult to find, and the former would love to test his power against the Nicaraguan warrior.

This explosive matchup would probably result in an abbreviated fight , one that would have fans at the edge of their seats.

Methinks "Ahas " would have a better chance, but judging from the Cuadras fight, Gonzales might be slipping and so I am not discounting a win by " Quadro Alas", probably on cuts.

LAST ROUNDS. Are on the little cherubs of Lyndon and Debbie Naya - Gavin who recently celebrated his birthday and baby Trei whom we welcomed to the Christian world. Cheers!