McWilliams Arroyo’s shoe falls apart fighting Chocolatito Gonzalez (video)

Apparently even the gear of opposing boxers gets scared of pound-for-pound boxing king Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez.

It’s not easy being in the ring against undefeated flyweight champion Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez. It’s even harder to fight him with one shoe.

McWilliams Arroyo gave a game effort againt Chocolatito in their co-feature bout on HBO on Saturday night in Inglewood, California. He probably was never going to win, but his chances dropped dramatically when his right shoe literally came apart during Round 4.

The HBO announcers noticed that the sole of the shoe was starting to separate as the two men fought, and Williams appeared to motion that he was in distress of some kind. Chocolatito would have none of it, and the ref didn’t stop the action. Eventually, this happened:

In thousands of rounds of boxing, this writer has never seen that happen to a fighter before. It had to be a major annoyance in the moment, and Arroyo had to fight the remainder of the bout without a sole on his right shoe.

The discussion between the members of the HBO crew was also awesome, with Max Kellerman wondering why Arroyo didn’t get time between rounds to fix or replace the show, Roy Jones Jr insistent that it was the fighter’s fault for not having more reliable footwear and Jim Lampley telling a story about another fight with a different wardrobe malfunction.

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