Yuriorkis Gamboa Barely Defeats Alexis Reyes in Cancun

By Miguel Rivera

Former world champion Yuriorkis Gamboa (27-2, 17 KOs) was lucky to walk away with a win, when he boxed his way to razor thin ten round majority decision over Alexis Reyes (15-3-1, 7 KOs) in a lightweight contest from the Grand Oasis Hotel in Cancun, Mexico.

The scores were 95-94, 95-94 and 94-94.

Reyes, who was much taller, was coming off a split decision loss to undefeated Alejandro Zuniga. The event was promoted by Pepe Gomez of Cancun Boxing of Pepe Gómez and televised to millions of homes through Televisa Deportes.

Back in May,Gamboa was upset by tough Mexican super featherweight contender Robinson Castellanos, who dropped Gamboa in the third and fourth rounds before the contest was stopped in the seventh.

The other defeat on Gamboa's ledger came at the hands of current junior welterweight champion Terence Crawford.

Gamboa fought in Mexico back in 2014, also in Cancun, where he knocked out Joel Montes de Oca in six rounds.

Since that appearance in Mexico, his activity has been poor. He didn't fight against until a year later, in December 2015, and then had no fights until March of 2017 - around the time that he signed a promotional deal with Golden Boy Promotions. He was previously promoted by Top Rank and also by Ahmet Oner of Arena Box.

Golden Boy had already put the wheels in a motion for a future fight between Gamboa and WBO champion Vasyl Lomachenko - but all of that went out the window when Castellanos pulled off the upset TKO victory.

Gamboa, a gold medalist in the 2004 Athens Olympics, is a former WBA and IBF featherweight world champion.

Gamboa has faced such boxers as Orlando Salido, Jonathan Víctor Barros, Jorge 'Coloradito' Solís, Daniel Ponce de León, Crawford, René Alvarado and Castellanos - but he appears to be on the decline due to inactivity and bad training habits.