
By Ryan Burton
MGM Grand, Las Vegas, NV - Juanma Lopez (34-3) is fully focused on his fight against undefeated rival Francisco Vargas (19-0-1) but realizes that a victory over the Mexican will lead to an even higher profile fight. Lopez has been linked to Olympic gold medalist Yuriorkis Gamboa for years and even though the Cuban was stopped in his last fight, Lopez is still interested in facing him.
Lopez feels that Gamboa should be fighting as a super featherweight and that one of the factors in his loss to Terence Crawford was the size difference between Crawford and Gamboa. The Puerto Rican fighter also said that he would love to get another chance to avenge his losses to Orlando Salido and Mikey Garcia.
"There were a lot of factors in that fight. I don't think Gamboa is a 135 pound fighter. There are a lot of guys out there I would like to fight like fight. Gamboa, Salido, Mikey, Lomachenko - if he decides to move up to 130 pounds. I would like to fight any of them but right now all of my focus is on Vargas," said Lopez.
Juanma has had great success in Las Vegas. In 2010 he scored one of his greatest victories when he stopped Rafael Marquez at the same venue he will face Vargas on Saturday night. He said that he hopes to continue his streak in Sin City.
"I am very happy to be back in Las Vegas. I am undefeated here, 3-0 with three knockouts. I hope to keep that streak going," Juanma told BoxingScene.com.
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