STORY OF PHILIPPINE BOXING PART XXXVIII: BRIAN VILORIA, THE WBA, WBO, WBC AND IBF LIGHT FLYWEIGHT AND FLYWEIGHT WORLD CHAMPION
By Maloney L. Samaco
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 17 May 2020
Brian "The Hawaiian Punch" Viloria won via unanimous decision against Colombia's Jose Garcia Bernal in his first fight at the super flyweight division at the Alameda Swap Meet in Los Angeles, California on January 4, 2008.
Viloria collected four more victories before going down back to the light flyweight division, winning over Cesar Lopez of Texas by UD, Fred Heberto Valdez of Mexico by 3rd round KO, Juan Javier Lagos of Mexico in a rematch by UD, and Benjamin Garcia of Mexico by 2nd round KO.
On April 19, 2009, Viloria challenged Mexican Ulises "Archie" Solís for the IBF world light flyweight title. Viloria defeated Solis, who at the time of the fight was rated No. 1 junior flyweight by The Ring.
In Round 11, a picture perfect right hand to the chin downed Solis to the canvas on all fours. He tried to get to his knees, but was not able to rise up until the referee counted him out. It took sometime for Solis to rest on the canvas before going to his corner to recover.
The official stoppage was at 2:56 of the 11th round. The fight was held at Araneta Coliseum as the co-main event of the Nonito Donaire vs. Raul Martinez IBF world flyweight title fight which Donaire won by 4th round TKO. Viloria snapped Solis' 11-fight unbeaten streak, 8 of these matches were title defenses while extending his own winning streak to 6 fights.
Viloria successfully defended his IBF light flyweight title on August 29, 2009 against Jesus Iribe of Mexico in Honolulu, Hawaii via unanimous decision.
In his second defense, Viloria faced Carlos Tamara of Colombia on January 23, 2010. Though he was leading in points, the referee stopped the bout for Tamara's victory as Viloria lost steam in the 12th round awarding Tamara the TKO win and the title belt.
Viloria returned to the flyweight division by fighting Mexico's Omar Soto winning by split decision on July 10, 2010 at the Yñares Sports Arena, Pasig City, Metro Manila.
He stopped Phaiboon Chumthong of Thailand by a 7th round knockout on October 5, 2010 in Pasig City.
On July 16, 2011 Viloria became world champion again by capturing the WBO world flyweight title beating Mexican Julio César Miranda by unanimous decision. Viloria floored Miranda in the first round in Honolulu.
On December 10, 2011 Viloria stopped Mexican Giovani Segura by an 8th round TKO in Pasig City.
On May 13, 2012, Viloria fought his arch rival Omar Niño Romero of Mexico for a third match and stopped him in the 9th round for another successful defense of his WBO flyweight title in Pasig City.
On November 17, 2012 Viloria challenged Hernan Marquez in a flyweight unification staking his WBO title and vying for Marquez's WBA crown. He downed Marquez in rounds 1, 5 and 10 leading to the stoppage of the fight. Viloria became the first unified world flyweight champion since Salvatore Burruni of Italy in 1965.
Viloria then lost both titles to Juan Francisco Estrada on April 6, 2013 by split decision in Macau, China. Estrada rallied in the last five rounds to convince two judges Francisco Martinez of New Zealand who had it 117-111 and Michael Pernick of USA who scored 116-111 for Estrada. Only Levi Martinez of USA favored Viloria, 115-113.
Viloria picked up four more wins over Juan Carlos Herrera of Puerto Rico by UD, Jose Alfredo Zuniga by 5th round KO, Armando Vazquez of Mexico by 4th round KO, and Omar Soto in a rematch by 1st round KO.
He faced pound for pound king Román González of Nicaragua on October 17, 2015 in New York City for the WBC and The Ring world flyweight titles. Viloria was stopped in the 9th round and lost via TKO.
Viloria later fought Artem Dalakian of Azerbaijan on February 24, 2018 at The Forum, Inglewood, California for the vacant WBA world flyweight title but lost by unanimous decision. Following the loss, he hanged up his gloves for good.
He fought a total of 38 wins with 23 KOs, 6 losses with only 2 KO losses per Boxrec.com. He was stopped only by González and Tamara. He retired with title belts in all four major boxing sanctioning bodies, WBA, WBC, WBO and IBF.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Maloney L. Samaco.
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