Viloria TKOs Marquez, unifies world flyweight belts
World Boxing Organization flyweight champion Brian Viloria thoroughly dominated WBA titlist Hernan “Tyson” Marquez, knocking down the Mexican in the first and fifth rounds before finally stopping him in the 10th to win their unification bout via technical knockout in Los Angeles, California.
Marquez’s corner threw in the towel after the Mexican absorbed a crunching left hook from Viloria, went down, and struggled on wobbly legs against Viloria's onslaught.
Viloria started out like a house on fire, attacking Marquez in the first round before the Mexican recovered somewhat near the end. But out of nowhere, the Hawaiian Punch caught Marquez with a vicious right that sent his opponent down. Marquez got up at the count of seven and was lucky the bell sounded a few seconds later.
After getting a taste of Viloria’s punching power, Marquez went on the defensive in the next three rounds, which the Filipino-American easily won. Marquez simply had no answer for Viloria’s speed and at times looked bewildered and outmatched.
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In the fifth, Marquez started showing some life, tagging Viloria with a solid right hook and following up with several good punches, only to get knocked down again after absorbing a left-right combo as the 31-year-old WBO champ suddenly came to life.
Viloria was in cruise control from then on, doing just enough to win the sixth, seventh and eighth rounds before Marquez put up some semblance of a fight in the ninth.
By then, though, Viloria was a head by a mile on the scorecards, and finally put an end to the one-sided fight in the next round, the official time coming at 1:01 of the 10th
Viloria thus added Marquez’s World Boxing Association Super World flyweight belt to his own WBO diadem, while improving his record to 32-3 with 19 knockouts. It was his third straight successful defense of his WBO belt, all coming by technical knockout.
Marquez, who was also making the third defense of his own WBA belt, fell to 31-3 with 25 KOs.
[RELATED: Brian Viloria ready to rise above lack of recognition]
Another Filipino, super bantamweight prospect Drian Francisco, was also victorious in an undercard bout, stopping Javier Gallo in 2:54 of the fifth round of a scheduled eight-rounder. Francisco improved to 23-1-1 with 18 knockouts.
