By Paul Strauss: The Morongo Casino Resort & Spa boxing fans were treated to a typically good showing from Jhonny Gonzalez. He had no trouble with Reynaldo Lopez, stopping him at 2:17 of the fourth round. Jhonny now has a win streak of six, and all but one ended in either a KO or TKO. Tonight Jhonny spent the first couple of rounds finding the range. Meanwhile, Lopez was trying his best to make a good showing of his own. He threw some solid punches, but was unable to penetrate Jhonny’s defense..
Early on it appeared Gonzalez might be able to catch Lopez leading in head first. The expectation was Gonzalez would nail the southpaw with a left hook or uppercut on the way in. However, Jhonny had other ideas. He just steadily cranked up his overall attack, featuring powerful left hooks to the body and head, which he followed with straight punch combinations.
Jhonny enjoyed both a height and reach advantage over Lopez, and he made good use of both to add to his already impressive KO percentage ratio of 73.91%. He started out conservatively, studying his potential victim for weaknesses. All of victims seem to be susceptible to his left hook, and Lopez was no exception.
Lopez landed a few right jabs, but most were caught by Jhonny’s gloves.
Lopez also leaped in with some long straight lefts, but usually Jhonny moved out of range. At the same time, he was countering, and stepping up his own attack.
Basically, he worked off of the left jab and hooks to the body, but he also showed excellent combinations. He once again demonstrated his ability to slide forward with each punch to keep or get into range. That’s what caused the first knock down. First, his combination drove Lopez back, but Lopez appeared to be keeping just out of range of the full impact. Or, at least that’s what he thought until the last long right hand caught him “up side of the head”, sending him to the canvas for about a nine count.
Even though he beat the count, he was starting to wilt from the onslaught of left hooks, both to the body and head, almost always followed by straight punch combinations. The final knockdown and ten count came as a result of a flurry of Jhonny’s punches, but it was the left hook that did the real damage.
BoxingRec has Jhonny Gonzalez rated number nine, behind Celestino Caballero (3rd) and Steve Molitor (4th), who are matched up tonight in a later battle scheduled to take place in Rama, Ontario, Molitor’s backyard. Undoubtedly, Jhonny will gain ground on one of these two little warriors……..not so little in Caballero’s case! Can you believe at 5′ 11″, with a 72″ reach, he still makes Super Bantam weight! Molitor is 28 -0, with 11 KO’s, so hopefully for him, he will know how to get inside that height and reach. Otherwise, it’s going to be a “Bad Day at Black Rock”, as they said in the old time Spencer Tracy movie. It would be great to see Gonzalez take on the winner!
The lead in bout to the Gonzalez vs. Lopez match, featured Nestor Rocha 21(7) -1(0) versus Oscar Andrade 26(18) -35(11) -2. It was one sided on the score cards, but still entertaining, with lots of action. Both men employ similar styles, but Rocha has a bit more power and worked harder. Each time Andrade would attempt to mount some sort of attack, Rocha would send back just as much, plus more.
As the fight progressed, Rocha managed to render Andrade’s right useless, because Andrade needed to keep it close to defend against Rocha’s left hooks and uppercuts.
Neither fighter appeared hurt at any time in the bout, but Andrade was on the short end of the punch totals and power punches. All three judges scored the ten round bout identically…….100-90. Now, let’s go on to Canada for more excitement!