Roman Gonzalez and The End of a Line

By Cliff Rold 

Gerald Ford was President of the United States. Jaws was still six months from release while Rocky and Star Wars were still only glimmers in their creators eyes. The two-time World Series champion Toronto Blue Jays didn’t exist yet.

That’s how long it’s been.

On January 8, 1975, Ring’s #1 and #2 rated flyweights, Miguel Canto and WBC titlist Shoji Oguma, faced off. Ring recognized the winner as the new, true, champion of the class. Thailand’s Venice Borkhorsor vacated the lineal crown in 1973 and moved to bantamweight, the end of a 23-year lineage. For historians, 01/08/1975 is the date most regarded as the start of a new lineage at 112 lbs.

Any argument about Canto’s claim to the crown would be ebbed away during a notable reign. He set a division record with 14 consecutive title defenses. While he never unified in what was an era of only two major alphabet titles, the WBA title would eventually end up on the waist of Venezuela’s Betulio Gonzalez.

Gonzalez was the last man to defeat Canto before his reign. Canto avenged that loss twice in title defenses before Gonzalez knocked out Guty Espadas in 1978 for the WBA strap.

The lineage clearly belonged to Canto.

Last week, reigning lineal (and TBRB, and Ring, and WBC) flyweight champion Roman Gonzalez relinquished his place on top of the division. After defeating Carlos Cuadras for the WBC belt at 115 lbs., it was assumed he’d be staying. The formality is now official.

With that decision, boxing’s longest continuous lineage is no more.

And it wasn’t just the longest current lineage in boxing.

Those 41 and three quarter years represent the longest continuous lineage of any title, in any division, since Lennox Lewis retired as heavyweight champion in 2004. Lewis’s lineage could be traced to the battle between Floyd Patterson and Archie Moore in 1956. The man who beat the man could be traced in a straight line from there, saved by the ill-fated return of Muhammad Ali against Larry Holmes in 1980.

Lewis’s line was the longest consecutive lineage in any class since the line of champions passed from John L. Sullivan to Gene Tunney (again with a purists save from a returning retired champion, James Jeffries) at heavyweight many decades before. 

This flyweight line didn’t make it as long as either of those but it is a remarkable thing to examine as Gonzalez moves up the scale.

Put aside movie, political, and broader sporting history.

When Canto defeated Oguma in January 1975, the first Jr. flyweight (108 lb.) champion was still four months from being crowned.

There was no Strawweight (105 lb.) class for another 12 years. If a flyweight champion wanted to move up in weight it meant going straight to bantamweight (118 lbs.) for another five years before the establishment of the Jr. bantamweight class in 1980.

The Ring Magazine/United States Boxing Championships scandal was still a year away. There was no IBF for another eight years and the WBO, the last of the sanctioning body titles to become widely recognized by fans and media, wouldn’t be born for another thirteen.

In all those years, we’ve seen champions win and vacate straps with regularity, moving up in weight or being stripped for political and competitive reasons. Even this lineage has a hiccup.

In boxing, there is often an asterisk.

The line almost collapsed in 1999 and for some purists there is an argument that it did. Manny Pacquiao lost the flyweight crown on the scales and was then knocked out with the WBC belt on the line, for the challenger only, by Medgoen Singsurat.

There are some historical examples of fighters claiming a crown after a champion misses weight but the allowance has been most formalized in the sanctioning body era. For the purest of purist, perhaps the vacancy of Roman Gonzalez is less interesting.

Historical online encyclopedia “The Cyber Boxing Zone” has always recognized the continuation of the line from Pacquiao-Singsurat. Most other historians have as well. Place an asterisk if one must. Ring Magazine, when they started recognizing divisional champions again in the early 2000s, recognized no lineage at flyweight. Ultimately, they wound up right back at their own original line when Pongsaklek Wonjongkam defeated Koki Kameda to win his second WBC (and lineal) flyweight crown in 2010.

Kameda and Wonjongkam were the top two rated flyweights by Ring, and generally everyone else, at the time.

This decades-long lineage amidst a sea of changes to the boxing landscape can be used as both a case for, and against, the valuing of lineage at all in a current context. Gonzalez was recognized during his reign as not only the best flyweight but also one of the best fighters, period, in the world.

That hasn’t always been the case in the last forty years.

There were plenty of occasions where other beltholders looked much more the part of the ‘real’ flyweight king. During one infamous stretch, the WBC title passed through seven men from March 1982 to October 1984, six of them losing the title in their first title defense. While this was going on, Santos Laciar was racking up what would be eventually nine WBA title defenses against quality competition.

Lineage isn’t a physical title. It’s a historical marker. The men who hold it and, more importantly, what they do with it imbue its value and meaning. The longest lineage left standing right now in boxing is at middleweight, where Saul Alvarez still maintains some hold on history’s 160 lb. crown. His choice of opponents since defeating Miguel Cotto, flip flopping on what division he fights in, and the presence and lack of a fight with Gennady Golovkin, doesn’t lend a ton of competitive credibility to his lineal claim right now for many.

Sometimes the same was true at flyweight in the last 41 years. Sometimes it wasn’t. Boxing is at its best when champions win, and lose, their titles in the ring against legitimate contenders to the crown. That principle, while not always a reality, is worth protecting even if at times it is hard to defend. The champion of a given class has never always been the best fighter in the class. Boxing is better off when the anomalous lesser champion has to face the man who should be king.

That is boxing as sport before business.

As this line of champion’s end then, a tip of the cap to five men who held history’s crown in the last four decades and made it matter and an accompanying list of flyweight titlists who put lineage in question by their own fistic prowess.

Top Five non-lineal flyweight titlists since 1975

1)    Santos Laciar: The Argentine is overdue for a trip to Canastota. He twice held the WBA crown before moving to capture a title at 115 lbs. Laciar’s second reign at 112 started with a win over Betulio Gonzalez and featured a defense against Hall of Famer Hilario Zapata and wins over future IBF titlist Hi-Sup Shin and former lineal champion Prudencio Cardona.

2)    Mark Johnson: Avoided as a mandatory to the lineal crown worn by Yuri Arbachakov, Johnson established his Hall of Fame chops at flyweight. There were some who thought the prime Johnson was the most gifted fighter in boxing in the late 90s not named Roy Jones. He won the IBF title in 1996 with a first round knockout of Francisco Tejedor and defended seven times before moving up in weight.

3)    Nonito Donaire: Donaire would have been favored over anyone in the division after he won the IBF crown from Vic Darchinyan (who could also easily be on this list) in 2007. Four title defenses, including a defense against future titlist Moruti Mthalane, were a launch pad to accomplishments all the way to featherweight.

4)    Fidel Bassa: Colombia’s Bassa won one of the greatest flyweight fights of all time in his first battle with future titlist Dave McAuley in 1987. He won the title from Zapata and managed a draw on the road in Panama in the rematch. He would ultimately make six defenses but never got a crack at Thailand’s Sot Chitalada. It’s too bad. What a fight that would have been,

5)    Brian Viloria/Juan Francisco Estrada: This is a tie, and it’s cheating, but so what? After seemingly hitting his peak at 108 lbs., Viloria went on a six-fight tear from 2010-12 at flyweight. He won the WBO crown from Julio Cesar Miranda, knocked out former lineal Jr. flyweight champion Giovani Segura, and stopped WBA titlist Tyson Marquez in a war to win the first unification fight at flyweight since the split alphabet title era in the division began. He lost the crown to Estrada, who defeated quality challengers Segura and Melindo and a more faded Marquez. Estrada never secured a rematch with Gonzalez (who defeated him at 108 lbs.) at flyweight, but their paths may yet cross higher on the scale.

Top Five lineal flyweight champions since 1975

1)    Miguel Canto: Canto was one of the best fighters of the 1970s, a Mexican stylist who got it done without much pop in his fists. His multiple wins over Gonzalez, Oguma, future titlists Susumu Hangata and Antonio Avelar, and tough contender Martin Vargas rounded out a fantastic title reign.

2)    Sot Chitalada: One of the great Thai fighters ever, Chitalada won the title in only his eighth pro fight from Gabriel Bernal. He would defend six times over nearly four years, defeating Bernal again along with former titlist Charlie Magri. He lost the title on the road to Korea’s Yong-Kang Kim, won it back the following year, and made four more defenses including avenging his first career loss to Hall of Famer Jung-Koo Chang. He lost the title for good in 1991.

3)    Pongsaklek Wonjongkam: The man who topped Canto’s record for consecutive defenses at 17 in his first reign, Wonjongkam had good power and, in his prime, excellent hand speed and boxing IQ. During his record setting reign his opponents sometimes left much to be desired. He never unified, which meant not facing a Donaire, Vic Darchinyan, or Omar Narvaez. However, after losing the title to twice beaten foe Daisuke Naito, Wonjongkam made a case that he was more than just numbers with wins over Miranda, future titlist Suriyan Sor Rungvisai, Kameda, and a streaking Sosa.

4)    Yuri Arbachakov: While he never faced Johnson during his reign, this Russian by way of Japan beat plenty of other solid contenders in a five-year, nine-defense title reign. His lone professional loss, to Thailand’s Chatchai Sasakul, would be his final fight and a sign that he’d, as some like to say, grown old overnight. He had bested Sasakul just three fights prior.

5)    Roman Gonzalez: He became the first man to stop rugged Akira Yaegashi for the title and defended his title four times, the last three against universally rated top ten contenders Edgar Sosa, Viloria, and McWilliams Arroyo. He may well have beaten anyone on either on these lists, and could one day be seen as historically superior to them, but his relatively short run in the class is taken into account when comparing them all as champions.

And so a lineage ends, at least until someone else picks up the throne left behind. It is at least a fitting end. It began with a Hall of Fame great and ends with a fighter already a seeming lock for the Hall of Fame.

41 and three quarter years…given the fractious nature of boxing today, likely to remain as such, we may never see its like again.

Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com