Joet Gonzalez aims to see if the third time’s a charm theory can apply to his boxing career.
BoxingScene has learned that a deal was struck for Gonzalez to next challenge IBF featherweight titlist Luis Alberto Lopez. Their scheduled twelve-round title fight will headline a September 15 show on an ESPN platform from American Bank Center in Corpus Christi, Texas.
It will mark the first boxing event at the venue since December 2018, when Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez made the final defense of his WBO super middleweight title in a repeat twelve-round win over Jesse Hart. That show also aired on ESPN+ and was promoted by Top Rank, the lead promoter for this card and who also represents Lopez and Gonzalez.
ESPN’s Mike Coppinger was the first to report the Lopez-Gonzalez fight date.
Mexicali’s Lopez (28-2, 16KOs) will attempt the second defense of the IBF featherweight title he won in a twelve-round, majority decision victory over Josh Warrington last December on the road in Leeds, England. He returned to the U.K. for his first defense and most recent win, a sensational fifth-round knockout of Michael Conlan this past May 27 in the challenger’s Belfast hometown.
The red-hot 29-year-old titleholder has won eleven straight as he enters his first fight stateside since last August.
Gonzalez (26-3, 15KOs) has come up short in two previous title bids.
The 29-year-old from Glendora, California is .500 in his past six fights, having suffered two losses in WBO featherweight title fights. He fell miserably short in an October 2019 near-shutout to Shakur Stevenson but bounced back with a ten-round decision win over Miguel Marriaga. It led to an October 2021 challenge of Emanuel ‘Vaquero’ Navarrete, who defended the WBO 126-pound title in an entertaining but clear-cut points win.
Gonzalez then defeated Jeo Santisima and subsequently lost to former titlist Isaac Dogboe, who then faced and lost to Robeisy Ramirez in their April 1 vacant WBO featherweight title fight in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Gonzalez appeared on the April 1 undercard, where he scored a dominant ten-round points win over Enrique Vivas.
By Jake Donovan