Kevin Gonzalez will grace the undercard of another high-profile event.
The unbeaten junior featherweight prospect is set to next face Colombia’s Jose Sanmartin on March 25 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The preliminary bout will immediately precede the Showtime Pay-Per-View telecast headlined by the David Benavidez-Caleb Plant interim WBC super middleweight title fight.
Shane Shapiro, Sanmartin’s promoter, confirmed the bout on Sunday.
Gonzalez (25-0-1, 13KOs) was previously due to appear on the undercard of a Showtime telecast in February, but his schedule was pushed back by a month.
The unbeaten 25-year-old from Culiacan, Mexico is promoted by Juan Orengo’s Fresh Productions, most of whose top fighters are under the Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) banner. Gonzalez has been out since a ten-round, unanimous decision win over Emanuel Rivera Nieves last May 14 at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California. The bout marked his U.S. debut, landing the non-televised undercard of the Jermell Charlo-Brian Castano undisputed junior middleweight championship rematch, won by Charlo via tenth-round knockout.
Sanmartin (34-6-1, 21KOs) will fight in the U.S. for the first time in his twelve-year pro career. The 32-year-old from Barranquilla rebounded from a knockout loss to Mauricio Lara last October with a ten-round shutout of countryman Miguel Martinez last December in Santa Marta, Colombia.
Lara went on to capture the WBA featherweight title in his next fight in a come-from-behind knockout win over Leigh Wood on February 18 in Nottingham, England.
A similar development came of Sanmartin’s June 2018 12th round stoppage loss to Emanuel Navarrete, who won the WBO junior featherweight title six months later in a twelve-round decision over then-unbeaten titlist Isaac Dogboe. Sanmartin went on to win seven in a row following the Navarrete defeat before succumbing to Lara in a featherweight bout, one weight above his preferred junior featherweight home where he will meet Gonzalez.
Boxing Scene has also learned that unbeaten prospects Daniel Blancas (5-0, 3KOs), Orestes Velasquez (6-0, 6KOs) and Federico Pacheco (2-0, 1KO) are slated to appear on the preliminary undercard.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox