Sidelines
Maybe it was the pixels or the satellite or the almost imperceptible half-second delay, but the camera didn't capture the usual picture at yesterday's tele-press conference: The innocence. The youthful glow. The contagious smile. Golden boy Viloria
learns pro ropesAll out of sight. The Golden Boy was all grown up. The amateur is fading away.
Instead there was the new Brian Viloria, prepping for his May 17 return to Hawaii. The fighter. The contender. The professional boxer. He's changed, and he made sure we knew it.
"Like I said, I feel real comfortable as a professional now," the TV screen said. "I think I still got a little, few bugs out here to shake off as an amateur, but as a professional I feel ready. I'm a lot stronger, I've been at the gym, training, trying to switch my style from amateur to professional, so I've been very successful in doing that. So right now I'm just wanting to go back home and show whatever I can do again, as a professional."
If you took a drink every time Viloria used the word "professional" yesterday you wouldn't make it through a standing eight-count.
Professional boxing is one of the most ruthless games there is. And that's just outside the ring. Viloria and his handlers think he can become a champion -- "I can go far with this," he said wondrously, as if it had finally dawned on him -- but he needed to adapt, to change his ways, to make the most of his talent. To become a pro.
It's been a gradual, deliberate, calculated metamorphosis.
"Brian, as we all know, is a blue-chip fighter and a diamond in the rough, came out of the amateurs perhaps one of the most prized prospects," his manager Gary Gittelsohn said. "But every time he gets in the ring ... you saw it in his debut against a very, very game Ben Jun Escobia. Here's a guy who had 30 professional fights, and he has a number of losses. But any given day, that guy could fight for a title."
Ben Jun Escobia could get run over by a cement truck and smile. That doesn't mean he's a great boxer. It does mean that the pro circuit is tough, and the guys in it are tougher.
And that's what a young fighter needs to build his name and his game -- what Viloria called "these guys." Professional opponents, developmental adversaries that pad a resume, but enter the bargain with something to prove.
"In this weight class, there are no easy fighters," Gittelsohn said. "The flyweight weight class, this is not a weight class where you can coddle a fighter. We are working every day to identify appropriate opponents for Brian. And there are no easy guys out there, because traditionally this is not a weight class that is a celebrated or big money weight class. So the guys that are fighting in this weight class are generally guys that all believe they can be champions and get into that very, very narrow range where they can make money -- make serious money."
The guys in this weight class mean business. The guys in this weight class are hard-nosed pros.
Step by premeditated step, Viloria, the former Golden Boy, is becoming one, too.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com