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by David P. Greisman - This was the night that Terence Crawford needed.
He fought on HBO for the fourth time in his pro career. He headlined in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, in front of an announced crowd of nearly 11,000 people. He made the first defense of the lightweight world title he’d won this past March from Ricky Burns. And he succeeded, stopping Yuriorkis Gamboa via ninth-round technical knockout, excelling and exciting in what has been described as a star-making performance.
Crawford had to adjust to some early difficulty against Gamboa. It’s actually better for him that the bout unfolded that way.
Gamboa captured gold in the 2004 Olympics and had previously been a featherweight titleholder in the pro ranks. He was undefeated coming into the Crawford fight but had lost the momentum he’d gathered and the respect he’d garnered earlier in his career.
He’d gone from blowouts of Rogers Mtagwa and Jorge Solis and wins over Orlando Salido and Daniel Ponce de Leon to sitting on the shelf. He’d parted with promoter Top Rank, which sold his contractual rights to rapper 50 Cent’s fledgling company. He had fought only twice since — once, after 15 months out of the ring, in a win over Michael Farenas that came, amusingly, on the undercard of a Top Rank-promoted pay-per-view in December 2012; and in June 2013, when he outpointed Darlys Perez in a boring bout on HBO underneath Adonis Stevenson’s knockout of Chad Dawson.
Gamboa was coming back this past Saturday from a yearlong layoff. He hadn’t accomplished anything of note at junior lightweight beyond winning a meaningless interim title against Farenas, and his sole lightweight victory of note came against Perez, also for an interim belt. He had been implicated in early 2013 as being one of numerous pro athletes to receive performance-enhancing drugs from the Biogenesis clinic in Florida. [Click Here To Read More]
He fought on HBO for the fourth time in his pro career. He headlined in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, in front of an announced crowd of nearly 11,000 people. He made the first defense of the lightweight world title he’d won this past March from Ricky Burns. And he succeeded, stopping Yuriorkis Gamboa via ninth-round technical knockout, excelling and exciting in what has been described as a star-making performance.
Crawford had to adjust to some early difficulty against Gamboa. It’s actually better for him that the bout unfolded that way.
Gamboa captured gold in the 2004 Olympics and had previously been a featherweight titleholder in the pro ranks. He was undefeated coming into the Crawford fight but had lost the momentum he’d gathered and the respect he’d garnered earlier in his career.
He’d gone from blowouts of Rogers Mtagwa and Jorge Solis and wins over Orlando Salido and Daniel Ponce de Leon to sitting on the shelf. He’d parted with promoter Top Rank, which sold his contractual rights to rapper 50 Cent’s fledgling company. He had fought only twice since — once, after 15 months out of the ring, in a win over Michael Farenas that came, amusingly, on the undercard of a Top Rank-promoted pay-per-view in December 2012; and in June 2013, when he outpointed Darlys Perez in a boring bout on HBO underneath Adonis Stevenson’s knockout of Chad Dawson.
Gamboa was coming back this past Saturday from a yearlong layoff. He hadn’t accomplished anything of note at junior lightweight beyond winning a meaningless interim title against Farenas, and his sole lightweight victory of note came against Perez, also for an interim belt. He had been implicated in early 2013 as being one of numerous pro athletes to receive performance-enhancing drugs from the Biogenesis clinic in Florida. [Click Here To Read More]
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