By Jake Donovan

It was a good start to the new year for several reasons as far as Juan Carlos Payano was concerned. The former bantamweight champ returned to the ring and the win column, scoring an 8th round stoppage of Isao Gonzalo Carranza on Friday evening in his adopted hometown of Miami, Florida.

The win was his first since a hard-fought 12-round nod over Rau’Shee Warren in his lone successful title defense way back in Aug. ’15. He’d managed just one fight in between, a narrow points loss to Warren in their rematch last June after which he was put on the shelf while awaiting word from his handlers on his next fight date.

“Fighting once or twice per year once you’ve reached (the championship) level, that’s just not going to cut it,” Payano (18-1, 9KOs) told BoxingScene.com of his stunted career progress, really since his title win over the excellent Anselmo Moreno in September ’14. “I train, fight, recover – repeat. Even when I was injured I was still in the gym every day. My only issue for the past several years is that I don’t get to fight enough.”

The goal for 2017 for the two-time Olympian from Dominican Republic is obviously to improve greatly on his average of less than two fights per year since 2013. The consummate gym rat – who literally lives in the gym, as he is housed in trainer Herman Caicedo’s facility in Miami when away from his family – has big plans on the year, including what he hopes is a third fight with Warren in efforts to reclaim his old title.

His first order of business, however, is ensuring he does his part to arouse enough interest to make the fight a truly big event.

Friday’s win over Carranza came on the non-televised portion of the 2017 season debut of Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) on Spike TV. While not a desirable scenario, it was deemed a more favorable move than had he fought way off the radar at home in Dominican Republic, which was a possibility last December before deciding to instead head in this direction.

The hope now is to build towards a trilogy with Warren by keeping his name in the press and a presence in the boxing public.

“I don’t believe in fighting just once or twice a year when you reach a certain level,” insists Payano. “I want to fight 3-4 times per year; that’s how you stay sharp. Obviously, it’s not all up to me, but I’m going to push my team (Caicedo, manager Henry Rivalta, adviser Al Haymon) to make this happen.”

Twitter: @JakeNDaBox_v2