HBO's Nelson on The Future of Chocolatito Gonzalez

By Ryan Burton

The newly appointed Executive Vice President of HBO Sports, Peter Nelson, played a key role in bringing undefeated WBC flyweight champion Roman "Chocolatito" Gonzalez (44-0) to his network's airwaves. 

The diminutive three-division champion debuted on the premium network in May when he stopped Edgar Sosa in two rounds on the Gennady Golovkin-Willie Monroe undercard in Inglewood, Calif.  He followed that performance up with a 9th round stoppage of former champion Brian Viloria in October in the chief support of the Golovkin-David Lemieux pay-per-view main event that took place in New York.

Nelson downplayed his involvement in bringing the Nicaraguan to HBO and instead credited the fighter and his promoters Teiken and K2 for the roles they played in bringing the boxer many feel in the post-Floyd Mayweather world, is the best pound for pound fighter to the network. Fighters in weight classes below 122 pounds have traditionally been shied away from by premium U.S. networks.

"Chocolatito was very instrumental in bringing Chocolatito to the network. Mr. Honda and Tom Loeffler of K2 were very instrumental. They did a phenomenal service to the fans working with us in order to ensure that a wider audience could be able to see more readily the beautiful craft of Roman Gonzalez's fighting," said Nelson.

"For us, I don't think that fans intelligence should be underestimated and that they think that just because fighters are of a certain size that doesn't mean that they can't fight at a certain level of virtuosity and that should get recognized especially when the quality of competition is demanding and Roman is another type of fighter who says he will fight anyone at anytime and you saw the type of prestige accorded to him on the pound for pound list and that is not a result of being on HBO. That is a result of his illustrious career already to this point as well as the prime that he is in presently and the spirit that he embodies for the fans which is he wants to get in the ring and fight and he is not looking just to win, he is looking to dominate. Those are the types of fighters I think fans want to see."

A byproduct of Gonzalez becoming a staple on HBO is the need for quality opponents for the WBC 112 pound champion.  There are many good fighters in the 112-115 pound range including WBA/WBO flyweight champion Juan Francisco "Gallo" Estrada, who lost a competitive decision to Gonzalez in 2012, WBC super flyweight king Carlos Cuadras and WBO super flyweight champ Naoya Inoue of Japan.

I asked Nelson if it would be possible for those caliber of fighters to be showcased on HBO in order to be built into bigger attractions to face Gonzalez in the future.

"These are fighters who are excellent in their own right so I don't want to diminish anyone by saying that they are going to be built in order to fight a particular fighter but I would say that Roman Gonzalez has said that he wants to fight the best and the best that can be found to fight him, those are the fights we are going to try to make for him," Nelson told BoxingScene.com.

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