Viloria continues quest to the top

MANILA, Philippines - 2011 was a tremendous year for Brian Viloria (30-3-0, 17 KOs). The fighter everyone gave up on showed once and for all that he is not done yet. After losing his IBF light flyweight title to Carlos Tamara early in 2010, Viloria bounced back with two victories in the same year.

Viloria defeated Julio Cesar Miranda last July to append the WBO flyweight title. Late last year, Viloria got the biggest victory of his career as he stopped the highly-ranked Giovani Segura in the eighth round. With that, the boxing world knew that the old Brian Viloria is back and may just be better than ever.

Most boxing analysts argued that Segura will be a very tough nut to crack for Viloria. The Mexican had tremendous punching power in both hands and he also holds two knockout victories over Ivan Calderon who was then regarded as the best little fighter in the entire world. But Viloria made it look easy. He exposed Segura’s deficiency in speed as he clocked him with left hooks that caused a hematoma to build on the right side of Segura’s head.

Segura was confined to the hospital for days following the hellacious beating he took from Viloria.

Some of the credit must go to Viloria’s trainer Mario Morales who has re-lit the fire in Viloria’s belly. “He’s an old school trainer,” Viloria said. “We don’t do anything fancy, we just work hard all the time.” Morales devised a plan to prevent Segura from being able to get into his rhythm all night.

After that big victory, Viloria is out to ride the momentum into far bigger challenges but right now, there’s a ghost in his past that he wants to exorcise.

On April 1, Viloria will defend his WBO flyweight title against Omar Niño Romero (30-4-2, 12 KOs), a fighter Viloria has failed to defeat in two tries. A win over Romero has an additional appeal to Viloria as it will lead to a mouth-watering unification showdown against Hernan “Tyson” Marquez, the reigning WBA flyweight champion.

Get updates of the upcoming fight of Island Assault on Solar Sports – Ch. 70 on Sky Cable, Ch. 35 on Destiny, Ch. 45 on Cignal and Ch. 31 on Cable Link.