Brian Viloria has hung around long enough to see the flyweight division finally take center stage.

The 37-year-old four-time world champion from Waipahu will seek to add a fifth belt to his collection tonight when he fights Artem Dalakian for the vacant WBA 112-pound title on the undercard of “Superfly 2,” a three-fight event televised on HBO from The Forum in Inglewood, Calif.

Viloria (38-5, 23 KOs) will challenge the undefeated Dalakian (15-0, 11-0) in a fight broadcast online on ringtv.com just prior to the start of the HBO telecast, which features title fights in the super flyweight and IBF flyweight divisions.

It was only five years ago that Viloria, who held the WBA super flyweight and WBO flyweight titles, knocked out Hernan Marquez in a fight at the Los Angeles Sports Arena that had Roman Gonzalez and Juan Francisco Estrada in a 112-pound title fight on the undercard.

Viloria’s manager, Gary Gittelsohn, couldn’t even secure a television deal for the card and there were “maybe 250 people there” according to Viloria.

Fast forward five years and the lower divisions are now a featured part of HBO’s boxing telecasts, with Estrada fighting Srisaket Sor Rungvisai in the main event for the WBC 117-pound title.

Sor Rungvisai is coming off back-to-back wins over the previously undefeated Gonzalez, who was 46-0 and regarded as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world after Floyd Mayweather’s retirement.

Gonzalez, who TKO’d Viloria in a fight on HBO in 2015, is credited with being the one to help bring the flyweights to center stage on a prominent boxing telecast in the United States.

“If it wasn’t for ‘Chocolatito,’ we’d still be flying under the radar,” Viloria said in a phone interview Thursday. “He had this meteoric rise to becoming No. 1 pound-for-pound from the flyweight division and I think it helped a lot of the (TV) executives who had been turning their heads to our division.”

Gittelsohn — who has been with Viloria from the beginning, when he turned professional after competing in the 2000 Summer Olympics — remembers all of the meetings he participated in over the years begging and pleading with executives in the states to showcase Viloria during his run as world champion.

Viloria won his first world title when he viciously knocked out Eric Ortiz in 2005. It was broadcast on HBO, but on the undercard of a Manny Pacquiao fight, which was the only way for him to fight on television in the states.

“It was always someone else’s show,” Gittelsohn said in a phone interview Thursday. “This attention to the flyweight and super flyweight divisions is new and welcome.

“HBO used to be the 800-pound gorilla and now they are in deep competition with Showtime and ESPN and I think what that has done has created an opportunity for these lighter guys to finally be celebrated the way they always should have been.”

Viloria is the only active fighter remaining from the 2000 Olympics. He took 17 months off after the loss to Gonzalez and fought twice last year, winning a decision in Japan and scoring a knockout of Miguel Cartagena last September.

“I am still in it because I love the sport,” Viloria said. “It’s something I was born to do and it’s hard for me to walk away from something that I feel I’m still great at.”

Although the fight will be shown online, the HBO broadcast will likely show highlights of the fight.

A win would put Viloria in position to fight again on a live television broadcast — an honor not lost on him after so many years of trying to get to that point.

“Better late than never,” Viloria said with a chuckle. “Of course you kind of wish it happened a little bit sooner because I’ve had so many great fights that went under the radar that only a lot of hardcore boxing fans enjoyed.

“You wish you could have showcased that in front of fans not really exposed to the little weight divisions, but now we have this stage to put up great fights and I’m so happy that it’s happening. It’s really up to us now to take advantage of that exposure.”

Viloria’s fight will begin at approximately 3:20 p.m. The HBO telecast will be shown on a three-hour delay in Hawaii starting at 7 p.m.