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Gonzalez-Ponce de Leon will be on Alvarez-Williams undercard

Fighters Network
24
May

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WBC featherweight beltholder Jhonny Gonzalez will pursue his 13th straight win and his 12th knockout during that run when he makes the fifth defense of his crown against former titleholder Daniel Ponce de Leon on the undercard of the Saul “Canelo” AlvarezPaul Williams junior middleweight title bout on Sept. 15 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

“We just secured the deal for Ponce de Leon and Jhonny Gonzalez on Sept. 15,” said Golden Boy Promotions President, Oscar De La Hoya. “I’m looking to lock in four title fights for Sept. 15, and we’ve got two down, and, now, there’s two to go.”

Alvarez (40-0-1, 29 knockouts) will defend his crown against southpaw former two-time welterweight titleholder Williams (41-2, 27 KOs).



De La Hoya has hopes of matching hammer-fisted junior welterweight Marcos Maidana (31-3, 28 KOs) against the winner of a June 23 clash between between hard-hitting fellow Argentinian Lucas Matthysse (30-2, 28 KOs) and former WBC junior lightweight and lightweight titleholder Humberto Soto (58-7-2, 34 KOs).

“We’re looking closely at the fight between Soto-Matthysse from the June 23 card,” said De La Hoya, referring to a main event that matches Victor Ortiz in a welterweight bout opposite Josesito Lopez at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

“For me, personally, Maidana is a guy that I would love to put on there. Maidana against the winner of Soto-Matthysse sounds very enticing. It’s a natural fit.”

Gonzalez (52-7, 45 KOs) defended his belt with a unanimous decision over once-beaten former beltholder Elio Rojas in Cancun in April. Although Gonzalez won, Rojas ended his streak of 11 straight stoppage wins that a fourth-round knockout that dethroned Hozumi Hasegawa in April of last year.

Gonzalez had not lost since suffering a third-round KO to Toshiaki Nishioka in May of 2009 that ended his streak of six straight wins and five consecutive knockouts.

Ponce de Leon (43-4, 35 KOs) is coming off a unanimous decision over fellow Mexican southpaw Eduardo Lazcano on May 4 that followed his sixth-round knockout of Omar Estrella in January.

The win over Estrella helped Ponce de Leon to to bounce back from consecutive decision losses to Adrien Broner and Yuriorkis Gamboa in March and September of last year.

Photo by Emily Harney, Fightwireimages.com

Lem Satterfield can be reached at [email protected]

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