Photo by Chris Farina

While Sergey Kovalev was doing his thing in Las Vegas on Saturday, former two-division titleholder Brian Viloria had already finished his demoliton for the night, putting Omar Soto on the canvas three times to stop him at 2:02 of the first round in Hollywood, California.

Viloria (36-4, 22 knockouts) was fighting for the first time in nearly 8 months but clearly didn’t need long to shake the rust against his completely overmatched opponent.

The question now is what’s next for the 34-year-old native of Hawaii, who has been waiting for another shot at a world title since losing to Juan Francisco Estrada by split decision in 2013. Several “almost” opportunities have come but fell through.

One potential opponent is flyweight champion Roman Gonzalez. Asked before this fight about the possibility of facing him, Viloria said, “Estrada and ‘Chocolatito’ Gonzalez are fights I’m interested in. I would like to push for those fights in the next couple of months. But I don’t want to overlook my opponent on Saturday.”

No problem there.