Gamboa Says Juanma's Downfall Was Soft Matchmaking

By Rick Reeno

A few years ago, one of the biggest fights to be made in boxing was a featherweight unification between Olympic gold medal winner Yuriokis Gamboa (24-1, 17KOs) of Cuba and rising Puerto Rican star Juan Manuel Lopez (34-5, 31KOs).

At the time, Top Rank was the promoter of record for both fighters. They started building the matchup when both boxers were champions at super bantamweight and eventually they both moved up to become champions at 126-pounds.

But the pre-fight build dragged on until Lopez was knocked out by Orlando Salido in April of 2011.

Lopez has since retired, after suffering brutal knockout defeats in three of his last four fights. Gamboa's career is still alive and he plans to return in the fall on a Mayweather Promotions card.

Gamboa points the finger at Top Rank CEO Bob Arum, because he believes the veteran promoter matched Lopez against soft competition and in turn the Puerto Rican puncher fell apart when he actually stepped in the ring with fighters who were durable.

"I don't like the way he ended up, he was a great fighter, but Bob Arum messed up this kid's career and that's why he ended up the way he ended up," Gamboa told BoxingScene.com.

Gamboa said the perfect moment for the two of them to fight would have been in October of 2009, when the two fighters co-headlined a card from The Theater in Madison Square Garden.

Instead, Gamboa was matched against Whyber Garcia and Lopez was the headliner against what seemed to be a safe opponent in Robers Mtagwa. According to Gamboa, he was told the doubleheader would be the final obstacle before the two of them faced each other.

Gamboa did his part by knocking out Garcia in four rounds, but Lopez went life and death with Mtagwa and barely avoided a knockout loss in the twelfth round.

A few months later. Top Rank put Mtagwa in the ring with Gamboa, who easily demolished his opponent in two rounds.

"Instead of putting Lopez in with me, Arum put Mtagwa in with Lopez. And then he put Mtagwa in with me and I knocked him out in two rounds," Gamboa said.

After easily demolishing Mtagwa, Gamboa says Arum realized that Lopez would have been dismantled if he put the two of them in the ring.

"Yeah, that's it right there," Gamboa said. "He realized [when I beat Mtagwa] that if he would have put Lopez in to fight me, I would have finished him because I was much better.