By Manuel Perez: Undefeated former 2004 Cuban amateur Gold Medalist super featherweight Yuriorkis Gamboa (9-0, 8 KOs) takes a big leap up in competition this Saturday against Darling Jimenez (23-2, 14 KOs) in a 10-round bout at the Buffalo Bills Hotel, in Primm, Nevada. Gamboa, 26 has quickly risen up the rankings in the super featherweight division since turning professional last year in April 2007, winning eight of his nine bouts by knockout. Though he’s only fought nine times, Gamboa is already ranked #5 in the WBC and #3 in the WBA, and is thought by many to be even better than the top super featherweights in the division, such as Manny Pacquiao, Juan Manuel Marquez and Edwin Valero.

It’s still too early to tell due to the mostly soft opposition that Gamboa has been placed in with but he looks so far to have the goods to be a future champion in a short while. What makes Gamboa so appealing as a fighter is that he fights like he has a train to catch, not wasting any time with the typical feeling out period that most boxers use in the opening moments of their fights.

Gamboa typically goes right after his opposition, using his powerful left hook and right hand to land huge shots. The fact that Gamboa possess knockout power in each hand, plus awesome speed, usually makes for short bouts. So far, only one of his opponents has been able to make it to the final bell without being knocked out. However, Gamboa has a lot of bad habits typical of the latest batch of former Cuban amateur stars, namely he tends to fight much of the time with his hands down to his sides, leaving his head unprotected, and he often walks into shots from his opponents.

Up to this point in his short career it hasn’t mattered much because of his largely poor opposition that he’s been matched against, but it’s something that may turn out to be a problem in the future when he goes up against better fighters. One hopes that Gamboa can break these bad habits sooner rather than later, for if he goes into a title fight against the likes of Manny Pacquio, Marguez or Valero, they have the power to end things quickly should he make the mistake of walking up on them with his hands down by his sides. Perhaps another problem that Gamboa has shown his been his overconfidence, which seems to border on being a little egotistical the way he goes after his opponents.

A little confidence is a good for a fighter, but if they start to think they’re invincible, it can be a big problem when they finally fight someone that is able to fight back with equal skills. I imagine that Gamboa will put his ego in check once he fights a top fighter like the ones mentioned above, but it’s probably going to take a fighter like them to do, because he seems already to be a lot better than most of the current top 10 fighters in the division. You can forget all about his only having fought nine fights, because he has a long amateur career fighting often against the best fighters in the world.

In his last two fights, against Johnnie Edwards and Gilberto Loque, Gamboa has scored a pair of 1st round knockouts. In the Edwards bout, Gamboa knocked him down in the first 30 seconds of the bout with a left-right combination. Edwards looked shocked after getting up, as if he didn’t know where he was for a second. A short while later, Gamboa unloaded on him again with another combination, sending him to the canvas for the second time in the round. The referee then stopped the fight immediately while Edwards was still down.

In Gamboa’s bout with Loque, in January 2008, Gamboa knocked Loque down with a big left hook in the first minute of the round. While going after him to try and end things, Gamboa was tagged twice by two huge right hands from Loque, but it didn’t stop Gamboas’ forward momentum. He walked through the shots and landed another two big left hooks to drop Loque for the second time in the round. Seconds after Loque got up off the canvas, Gamboa knocked him down for the third and final time with a short left hook to the head. This time the referee stepped in and stopped the bout.

In facing Jimenez this Saturday, Gamboa is getting a big step up in terms of competition. Jimenez, 28, punches hard and is coming off of a shocking 3rd round KO over Mike Achondo in April 2007. Jimenez simply had too much power and skill for Achondo, and demolished him with a flurry of shots in the 3rd round. Though Jimenez doesn’t punch as hard as Gamboa nor have his skills, he throws a lot of combinations and is a busy fighter. If he can apply a lot of pressure against Gamboa like he did in his bout with Achondo, he has a chance of pulling off an upset. However, he’s going to have to start quickly because Gamboa is going to be trying to rip off his head from the start of the fight on Saturday.