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Lopez-Gamboa bout could be 2010’s top fight
By Kevin Iole, Yahoo! Sports
2 hours, 35 minutes ago
Anyone who saw Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez put on three of the best bouts of this, or any, lifetime has to be dying to see Juan Manuel Lopez and Yuriorkis Gamboa share a ring together.
Promoter Bob Arum said if all goes well, the bout will occur at Madison Square Garden in June on the eve of New York’s Puerto Rican Day parade, a night on which welterweight champion Miguel Cotto has historically fought.
Gamboa and Lopez will share a pay-per-view card at the Garden on Oct. 10. Lopez will defend his World Boxing Organization super bantamweight title against Rogers Mtgawa, while Gamboa will put his World Boxing Association interim featherweight belt on the line against Whyber Garcia. Promoter Bob Arum said if both men win, they’ll fight on the same “HBO Boxing After Dark” card in January, with Lopez potentially meeting Celestino Caballero in a super bantamweight unification bout.
If they win on that card, Arum said Lopez and Gamboa would then fight in June in the Garden in what going in would be the favorite for 2010 Fight of the Year.
“We’re listening to the people, and this is the kind of fight people want to see,” said Arum, who conceded the bout has potential to be similar to the slugfest that the first match between the late Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo became. “I think these guys are better boxers than Corrales and Castillo, so I don’t think it will be as mindless as that fight was. And when I say mindless, I mean it in a good way. They just stood there beating the [expletive] out of each other.
“I think JuanMa and Gamboa are going to go at it hard because that’s how they fight, but I think there will be more boxing skill involved.”
Lopez is a big slugger but has shown the ability to box. But Gamboa, a 2004 Olympic gold medalist for Cuba, has all but abandoned his boxing ability as a pro and has become a wild slugger. He’s gotten clipped on the chin frequently as a result of his eagerness to attack.
If he fights that way against Lopez, even though the bout will be at 126 pounds, a weight class up from where Lopez is dominating at 122, he could be in trouble. Lopez, who is 28-0, has won his last 14 bouts by knockout and had a stretch of three consecutive title fights in there in which he won in the first round.
Lopez, who has become nearly as popular in Puerto Rico as Cotto, hopes the bout can be put together, though he likes the idea of fighting on the same card several times as Gamboa.
“I think it’s important for people to get to know both of us and we both get bigger,” Lopez said. “We sparred in France before the Olympics. It wasn’t friendly sparring; we went at it pretty good. I got to watch him in a lot of amateur tournaments, also. We never fought each other in those, but we got to see each other often.”
By Kevin Iole, Yahoo! Sports
2 hours, 35 minutes ago
Anyone who saw Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez put on three of the best bouts of this, or any, lifetime has to be dying to see Juan Manuel Lopez and Yuriorkis Gamboa share a ring together.
Promoter Bob Arum said if all goes well, the bout will occur at Madison Square Garden in June on the eve of New York’s Puerto Rican Day parade, a night on which welterweight champion Miguel Cotto has historically fought.
Gamboa and Lopez will share a pay-per-view card at the Garden on Oct. 10. Lopez will defend his World Boxing Organization super bantamweight title against Rogers Mtgawa, while Gamboa will put his World Boxing Association interim featherweight belt on the line against Whyber Garcia. Promoter Bob Arum said if both men win, they’ll fight on the same “HBO Boxing After Dark” card in January, with Lopez potentially meeting Celestino Caballero in a super bantamweight unification bout.
If they win on that card, Arum said Lopez and Gamboa would then fight in June in the Garden in what going in would be the favorite for 2010 Fight of the Year.
“We’re listening to the people, and this is the kind of fight people want to see,” said Arum, who conceded the bout has potential to be similar to the slugfest that the first match between the late Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo became. “I think these guys are better boxers than Corrales and Castillo, so I don’t think it will be as mindless as that fight was. And when I say mindless, I mean it in a good way. They just stood there beating the [expletive] out of each other.
“I think JuanMa and Gamboa are going to go at it hard because that’s how they fight, but I think there will be more boxing skill involved.”
Lopez is a big slugger but has shown the ability to box. But Gamboa, a 2004 Olympic gold medalist for Cuba, has all but abandoned his boxing ability as a pro and has become a wild slugger. He’s gotten clipped on the chin frequently as a result of his eagerness to attack.
If he fights that way against Lopez, even though the bout will be at 126 pounds, a weight class up from where Lopez is dominating at 122, he could be in trouble. Lopez, who is 28-0, has won his last 14 bouts by knockout and had a stretch of three consecutive title fights in there in which he won in the first round.
Lopez, who has become nearly as popular in Puerto Rico as Cotto, hopes the bout can be put together, though he likes the idea of fighting on the same card several times as Gamboa.
“I think it’s important for people to get to know both of us and we both get bigger,” Lopez said. “We sparred in France before the Olympics. It wasn’t friendly sparring; we went at it pretty good. I got to watch him in a lot of amateur tournaments, also. We never fought each other in those, but we got to see each other often.”
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