Photos by Ed Mulholland/HBO
In the main of event of the summit of SuperFly fight night on Saturday, September 9, 2017, Roman “El Chocolatito” Gonzalez (46-2, 38 KOs) had a chance to avenge the only blemish on his record by facing off against Srisaket Sor Rungvisai (44-4, 40 KOs).
Their last bout was a fight-of-the-year candidate, but was overshadowed by the cloud of a controversial decision in Sor Rungvisai’s favor. Tonight, the Nicaraguan would have to put on a stellar performance to regain his title.
Unfortunately for Gonzalez, the Thai fighter came with his A+ game.
The bell rang and the pro-Gonzalez crowd cheered on their fighter as both men met in the center of the ring. Sor Rungvisai would open the bout the clear aggressor and brought the fight to Gonzalez similar to their first meeting.
Early on, something felt off about the Nicaraguan. Normally, the Gonzalez we’ve seen in previous bouts would throw high volume punches and control pace and tone, but on this night that was just not the case.
Sor Rungvisai carried himself confident and strong in every round and was clearly the stronger fighter. Gonzalez found some success and did land solid combinations, but he never fazed Sor Rungvisai at any point.
In the fourth round, we saw a shocking turn of events. While many boxing experts anticipated a tough fight for Gonzalez, not many could’ve predicted an early knockout for Sor Rungvisai, but that is exactly what happened.
Gonzalez found himself with his back on the canvas after being dropped twice in the round and on the second knockdown, Gonzalez would lay idle in the center of the ring as the referee called an immediate stop to the bout.
With what happened in their last encounter, to getting knocked out cold, this could spell the end of the Chocolatito era. If in fact Sor Rungvisai’s first win over Chocolatito caused him to show up to the fight as just a shell of himself, coming back from a possible knockout of the year seems almost out of the question.
Sor Rungvisai will now have his eyes set on the likes of Juan Francisco Estrada. With Thailand on his back, Srisaket Sor Rungvisai may be the new force in the Super Flyweight division.
