Viloria takes another shot at a title

Sooner or later it figured Brian Viloria might return to the ring, but who knew it would be where Akebono, Konishiki and Musashimaru won championships?

Sixteen months after he lost his last world championship, the World Boxing Council flyweight title, Viloria reemerges in, of all places, the temple of sumo, the Kokugikan, next week in Tokyo.

And, no, he hasn’t acquired a mawashi or forsaken the left hook for the yorikiri and salt-throwing to become the world’s lightest sumotori.

The quest by the 36-year-old Viloria for what would be a fifth world title begins March 2. That’s when he takes on Ruben Montoya of Mexico in a 114-pound non-title bout on the undercard of the Shinsuke Yamanaka-Carlos Carlson WBC bantamweight championship card at the Kokugikan, which will serve as the boxing site for the 2020 Summer Olympics.

After losing his title to Roman Gonzalez of Nicaragua on a ninth-round technical knockout in October 2015, Viloria left Madison Square Garden in search of some rest and, eventually, answers.

“I wanted him to take some time to get away, to evaluate (the future),” manager Gary Gittelsohn said. “He needed to decide where he wanted to go with his career.”

Viloria, who, at various times, held world light flyweight titles in the WBC and International Boxing Federation and the flyweight crown twice in the World Boxing Organization, stepped away from the gym for the most extended period since he took up the sport in Waipahu as a youngster. Even hand surgeries had not idled him as long.

When Viloria was invited to put in an appearance last year at the International Boxing Hall of Fame in New York, which featured video of some of his fights, the growing speculation was that he was headed to retirement and more time with his wife, Erica, and 2-year-old son, Tyler.

In the meantime, as Viloria warmed to a return to the ring, the last two fighters to beat him in a five-year span of a 36-5 (22 knockouts) career, Gonzalez (46-0) and Juan Francisco Estrada (34-2), moved up a weight class and Gittelsohn said the feeling was Viloria could still win in the current flyweight ranks.

The thought propelled Viloria back to the gym on a mission six months ago in Los Angeles, where he has been sparring for three months. “In the whole time he was out he kept running, working out; he never put on more than 10 pounds (above his fighting weight),” Gittelsohn said.

Still, Viloria has spent more than half of his life around the ring. A highly decorated amateur who turned pro at age 19 after competing in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Viloria’s most unforgiving foe, Gittelsohn acknowledges, “is Father Time.”

So, beginning with the 31-year-old Montoya (14-4-1), a former flyweight champion of Mexico, the current plan is to pour everything into a two-year time frame and see if Viloria can capture the crown one more time. “We’ll cap it at about two years,” Gittelsohn said.

But however determined the pursuit, Gittelsohn pledges that it will not be an at-all-costs charge that leaves Viloria battered and badly spent like too many in the profession over the years.

“I love Brian so much, I promise never to let that happen,” Gitttelsohn said. “He has been very frugal. He has saved his money. He’s not going to be a causality, he’s going to be a success story.”

One more time, they hope.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.