Roman Gonzalez def. Brian Viloria, KO R9 2:53
Roman "Chocolatito" Gonzalez walked in to Madison Square Garden with many (myself included) calling him the #1 pound for pound boxer in the world. That's a heavy load of expectations to carry in to the ring, but Gonzalez abolsutely delivered on the hype, turning in a master class performance and stopping the incredibly game Brian Viloria in the 9th round.
Throughout the fight, Gonzalez showed off the scintillating high level technical skill that earned him that P4P king moniker. He constantly threw, using great accuracy to land again and again on Viloria and stiffle his offense. At the same time, his defense was great, avoiding much of Viloria's game.
That said, this was not a cake walk in any way. Viloria fought the fight of his life, coming out strong and winning round 1 on some scorecards. Gonzalez came back and dropped him in the 3rd round - the first knock down of Viloria's career - and continued to control the action from there on out, though Viloria remained in it throughout.
In the final round, Viloria landed a hard body shot that visibly hurt Gonzalez, shutting down his offense for close to a minute. Things looked promising for Viloria, but then Chocolatito came back and came back with a vegneance, emerging from his shell with a fury, piling on the offense, and forcing the much understood referee stoppage.
With that, Gonzalez is 44-0 with 38 KOs, and makes another claim to his #1 status.