Lopez and Gamboa KO their opponents and doubters
Juan Manuel Lopez and Yuriorkis Gamboa had their detractors coming into Saturday nights Top Rank card at New York's Madison Square Garden. Lopez was considered the next Puerto Rican superstar set to equal or exceed the stardom of Miguel Cotto and Felix Trinidad on the islands radar and the worlds. That was until his perfect record almost slipped through his hands when he survived a 12th round scare in semi-consciousness courtesy of rugged journeyman, Rogers Mtagwa.
Gamboa was an amateur superstar who had defected from Cuba to try his luck at the pro game which many suspected the gold medallist would dominate with similar ease. That was until he was dropped 4 times early in his career, revealing either a suspect chin or the type of over-zealousness that would soon see him separate with his undefeated record sooner or later. Fortunately, the only thing these two separated with during their respective Featherweight bouts was their doubters, because after 2 scintillating performances I doubt any still exist.
Lopez (28-0, 24 KO) moved up to Featherweight against no easy competition in WBO champions Steven Luevano (37-2-1, 15 KO). Luevano held his own throughout the first five rounds of the fight; using his jab and responding to the combination’s that Lopez was landing on him. Lopez remained patient, knowing his opportunity would come. He was possibly a tad weary from his previous bout, where he gassed out in the final round and was almost knocked out. However in the 6th Lopez began to clearly dominate against Luevano and in the 7th a right uppercut followed by a short right hand dropped Luevano. He barely made it to his feet and didn't seem comfortable there. That was enough to inspire referee Benjy Estevez to wisely call a halt to the action.
In the co-feature, Gamboa was in a league of his own against the same man who gave Lopez the best run for his money so far in his career, Rogers Mtagwa. Mtagwa only offered us 3 things in this fight; Either he struggled moving up from Junior Featherweight, His performance against Lopez last October was a one-off, or Yuriorkis Gamboa is a fighter ready to burst onto the scene. Personally I prefer the later. Gamboa (17-0, 15 KO) easily handled Mtagwa (25-14-2, 18 KO). He did so in such an accelerated fashion that we felt as if we were witnessing a 3 round amateur contest that is the Cubans specialty, not a 12 round professional fight in which Gamboa had his piece of the WBA Featherweight title at stake. He dropped Mtagwa twice before referee Steve Smoger had seen enough at the 2:35 mark of round 2. The Tanzanian was left crumbled in the corner. Mtagwa didn't grasp the opportunity of a second consecutive major title shot the way he did the first time, so I suspect he will have to come a long way before receiving a third. Maybe if he continued campaigning at the Junior Featherweight limit of 122 lbs. (which he only came in half a pound above, giving away 3 1/2 pounds on the scales) he may have more luck.
So now we all want to see how the two victors would fair against each other. But as we all know Bob Arum (Gamboa and Lopez's promoter) isn't interested in what the fans want, he is interested in what private jet his great grandchildren will own. For that reason he will tempt fate and try and build this fight into another mega fight that might not happen similar to the Pacquiao-Mayweather debacle I would rather forget. "There are a ton of great featherweights, so if I let these guys go in there and clean out the whole lot of them, that just makes them a lot bigger than if I threw them in there together now," Arum said post fight. If fighters like Chris John and Jorge Solis enter the mix the fans will continue to salivate until a Lopez-Gamboa fight does take place. But if one of them is to lose along the way, which isn't unlikely against this type of calibre opponents, then Arum can't expect the super fight that is ready for boxing right now.