HBO World Championship Boxing Results: Golovkin Wipes Out Wade, Chocolatito Defeats Arroyo
By: William Holmes
The Fabulous Forum in Inglewood, California was the host site for tonight’s broadcast of HBO’s World Championship Boxing.
Two titles were on the line tonight as Gennady “GGG” Golovkin defended his middleweight titles against the young American Dominic Wade. Top pound for pound boxer Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez defended his flyweight title against former Olympian McWilliams Arroyo.
Tonight was the third time that Roman Gonzalez and Gennady Golovkin fought on the same card.
Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez (44-0) opened up as a huge favorite over McWiliams Arroyo (16-2), but took his time in the opening round and both boxers spent the round feeling each other out while keeping a high guard.
Arroyo came out strong in the second round by landing multiple lead left hooks. Arroyo and Gonzalez exchanged several hard body shots, and at times Arroyo had Gonzalez moving backward. Gonzalez, hwoeve, slowed the momentum of Arroyo with a heavy body shot and closed the round strong.
Gonzalez’s dominance began to show in the third round as his body shots and uppercuts were landing with regularity and he was able to walk through some of the best punches of Arroyo. One left hook in particular rocked the jaw of Arroyo and Arroyo continued to take punishment to the body and head as the round came to an end.
The sole of Arroyo’s shoe came off in the fourth round, but Gonzalez showed no mercy and kept up the blistering pace. Arroyo fought back when he could, and was able to fire off some semi effective counters in the fifth and sixth rounds, but Gonzalez was still landing nearly double the punches of Arroyo.
Arroyo could do little but fight while moving backwards in the seventh round and his chin was tested often. A big left hook from Gonzalez hurt Arroyo in the opening minute of the eighth round and Gonzalez’s barrage of power shots continued into the ninth round.
By the tenth round the only chance of Arroyo pulling off the victory would have been by come from behind knockout, but Gonzalez never stepped off the gas pedal and battered Arroyo from corner to corner.
Arroyo showed incredible heart and gave Gonzalez a tougher fight than expected, but he was still outclassed and could not keep up with the pace of Gonzalez.
The judges scored the bout 119-109, 119-109, and 120-108 for Gonzalez.
The main event of the evening was between Gennady Golovkin (34-0) and Dominic Wade (18-0) in the middleweight division.
Wade was the taller fighter inside the ring, but Golovkin started the bout off strong and was landing hard shots to the body and head of Wade. Golovkin scored a knockdown in the first round with a right behind the ear of Wade. Wade was able to get up and survive the round, but Golovkin had landed three times the number of punches that Wade landed in the opening salvo.
Golovkin started off the second round aggressively and was looking for the kill. Golovkin appeared to let Wade land a five punch combination in the middle of the ring as if to say you can’t hurt me, and then followed it up with a right hand to the temple that sent Wade to the mat. Wade got up before the count of ten, but looked wobbly. Golovkin immediately jumped on Wade and took some shots in the process, but landed another right hook that sent Wade crashing to the mat by the corner.
Wade was unable to get back to his feet and remained on his knees at the count of ten.
Golovkin won by knockout, for the twenty second time in a row, at 2:37 of the second round.
