Gonzalez’s Title Shot Gets Knocked Out Before It Starts

Light heavyweight Julio Gonzalez of Huntington Beach won his 23rd consecutive fight Thursday night at the Arrowhead Pond before 3,420. But his fourth-round knockout didn’t taste as sweet as he had hoped.

Gonzalez thought he would be fighting for the Mexican Light Heavyweight title. Instead, Gonzalez found himself matched against 27-year-old Tony Menefee (70-8), a journeyman who flew in from Lincoln, Neb., Thursday morning and wasn’t approved by the state athletic commission until 10 minutes before the card began.

Jacobo Garcia, Gonzalez’s scheduled opponent, never made it out of Tijuana because of visa problems. Promoter Roy Englebrecht blamed the snafu on Gonzalez’s manager, Norm Kaplan.

“This was Norm’s guy,” Englebrecht said. “I relied on him. I learned a valuable lesson. Never rely on someone else.”

Kaplan, whose fighter’s payday was reduced from $4,000 to $3,000 to pay for Menefee’s expenses, said he learned something too.

“I will never, ever do business with [Englebrecht] again,” Kaplan said. “In my 50 years of boxing, I’ve never been through anything like that.”

Englebrecht, who said the last-minute opponent cost him $2,000 in expenses, said he considered canceling the fight 10 days ago when he learned of Garcia’s visa problems.

“I only went through all of this because Julio’s a stand-up guy and a good fighter,” Englebrecht said.

Gonzalez (22-0, 14 knockouts) was disappointed he didn’t win his native country’s title, but he played down the controversy.

“I thought about not taking the fight, but I had trained so hard. I wanted to fight. This is boxing. It happens. I can’t be upset. All I could do was take care of business in the ring.”

He did that pretty easily. Menefee, who was paid $5,000 for taking the fight on two days’ notice, was more of showman than a fighter. Menefee has been in the ring with Roberto Duran and Hector Camacho and most recently, Tony Ayala. But he was obviously past his prime.

Menefee held his own in a slow-moving first round, but he was hit with a barrage of straight right hands and left uppercuts in the second round. By the third round, Menefee’s nose was bloodied and he was spitting his mouthpiece out to take a breather.

Gonzalez put Menefee down with a vicious left hook to the jaw. Referee Lou Moret, who had worked the Shane Mosely-Oscar De La Hoya fight Saturday, stepped in and stopped the bout immediately.