In February of 2020, the last time I would dine indoors for a year and a half, I sat in a café in Anaheim with a fighter that looked like he might be done. Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez was two fights removed from a brutal knockout loss at the hands of Srisaket Sor Rungvisai, a moment many took as an opportunity to eulogize the career of the former pound-for-found top fighter in the sport. On that particular weekend in Anaheim, the all-time great was the B-side for the second time since he won the WBA minimumweight title from Yutaka Niida in 2008, brought in with the assumption that he would lose to Matchroom’s super flyweight hope Khalid Yafai.
As he sipped coffee judiciously with weigh-ins looming the next day, looking longingly at a brunch menu he couldn’t indulge in, he looked to me like a tired man. His face was weathered from years of ring battles, his labored smile mustering just enough to plump his cheeks. He spoke about wanting to provide opportunities for other fighters to help their families, through fighting him, and about the toll his knee injuries had taken on him over the years.
In the moment, it was hard not to connect his attitude with the broader narrative of Chocolatito being a spent bullet and conclude that the prognosticators were right—the oddsmakers made Yafai a -170 favorite, and they were right to do so.
My error in judgement was mistaking Gonzalez’s meekness with a lack of energy remaining for the sport, misjudging his uncommon level of grace for a resignation that his days were numbered.
Gonzalez dominated and stopped Yafai, looking like the same fighter that tore through boxing’s lightest weight classes at the highest level for close to a decade. The “plan,” such that there can be one in boxing, for Yafai to score a win over a future Hall of Famer and catapult to stardom was swapped with a new script. Instead of housing a new star, DAZN instead got something even more rare: the privilege of broadcasting an ongoing appreciation tour for a generational talent. An autumnal career run that seemed unthinkable five years ago, seeing Chocolatito prone and staring at the lighting structure at the StubHub Center in Carson, CA.
Special talents can sometimes do special things, and Gonzalez’s run since 2017 should be considered nothing short of that. After stopping Yafai, Gonzalez dominated a dangerous Israel Gonzalez, and then took part in a second classic with Juan Francisco Estrada, an extraordinary fight that many if not most people thought he deserved to win despite scores not going his way. The performance was good enough, and the decision disputed enough, that Gonzalez started to even get some votes from panel members on various rankings boards to reinsert him into the sport’s Top 10 pound-for-pound rankings.
Rebounding after a brutal knockout loss is a rarity even for Hall of Fame caliber fighters. Fighters like Terry Norris were able to shake off knockout losses and write additional positive chapters in their careers, and some like Lennox Lewis were able to do the same in order to close out their careers on top. But examples comparable to Chocolatito are limited—which is also the case in a general sense. BoxingScene staff writer Cliff Rold recently completed a ranking of the 100 greatest boxers of all-time, using a mathematical formula based heavily on victories over ranked fighters and champions. Gonzalez currently sits at No. 84, ahead of names like Erik Morales, Juan Manuel Marquez and James Toney.
It's been said many times that the super flyweight pairings of Gonzalez, Estrada, Srisaket and Carlos Cuadras have been historically great in terms of quality and longevity. Gonzalez and Estrada’s two fights specifically have been the perfect mixture of the type of violence Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera produced in their series and the exquisite technical skill Toney and Mike McCallum did during theirs.
Gonzalez was intended to face Estrada for a third time this weekend in San Diego, but after Estrada fell ill with COVID-19, 112-pound titleholder Julio Cesar Martinez stepped in on six weeks’ notice. It was a fairly shocking announcement, and one of the rare times in boxing when the intrigue a replacement opponent brings to the table actually makes you forget about the disappointment of losing the originally scheduled bout. It’s a fight Gonzalez admitted he “never expected to happen,” given Martinez was campaigning a weight class beneath him, but he “didn’t want his training camp to (go to waste)” and didn’t hesitate to accept.
Martinez is an all-action, switch-hitting brawler whose ideas about the tempo and territory at which a fight can be fought are sometimes out of line with what most fighters would think is wise, or even possible. Case in point: when recently asked for his opinion on the decision not going Chocolatito’s way in the Estrada rematch, he suggested that Chocolatito “could have applied more pressure.” Gonzalez threw 1,317 punches in the fight.
It’s the exact kind of matchup that could produce yet another classic for the Chocolatito compilation tape.
“I understand and comprehend that sooner or later, I will have to say goodbye,” said Gonzalez in a recent interview filmed by Matchroom. “That's what truly motivates me, to get to that moment. I have some goals to complete in my career and then we'll say no more.”
Chocolatito’s resurgence has happened parallel to the pandemic. One week after his win over Yafai, the world shut down. The boxing world forged ahead, and so did he. In a moment in which we all longed for the things we had before, Chocolatito brought us joy in the ability to watch a fighter we once thought we’d lost, looking just as we’d remembered him.
What looked to me a few years ago like a fighter fatigued by the rigors of the sport was instead a man who had found clarity, and was able to contextualize his own accomplishments. In his own words, Chocolatito is indeed looking forward to the day he retires. Not the act of retiring and not being able to fight anymore, but finding the right moment, the perfect high to go out on.
Corey Erdman is a boxing writer and commentator based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Follow him on Twitter @corey_erdman.
