By Rafa Garcia: Yuriorkis Gamboa vs. Juan Manuel Lopez was one of the most anticipated match-ups in the last ten years, but yet again Bob Arum of Top Rank Promotions has poured water over the fire by waiting too long and failing to make the fight. There was no reason why Gamboa-JuanMa couldn’t have gone the way of Manny Paquiao – Floyd Mayweather until JuanMa [Juan Manuel Lopez] was blown away by Mexican Orlando Salido.

There was always a risk of JuanMa being beat in this fight as he had little to gain, while Salido had everything to gain and nothing to lose. JuanMa did not look prepared neither in the right mindset for the fight and was totally outgunned by the Mexican. Don’t bother arguing the point: Yuriorkis Gamboa’s five knockdown stoppage of Jorge Solis was the most eye-popping combination of speed and power displayed in years and that includes not one or two but manny, manny, Manny fights. In fact, Gamboa was so overwhelming that only one conclusion can be drawn: matching him against anyone but the very best will be a bigger waste of time than Evander Holyfield’s quest to regain the undisputed heavyweight title.

My personal view is JuanMa is still Gamboa’s biggest challenge even after the Salido defeat, both fighters are promoted by Top Rank so in that sense, the match-up would seem far more make-able than most. This fight just has to be made if only for the hardcore boxing fans, if not Gamboa has mentioned moving up in weight, apparently oblivious to the fact that the super featherweight division offers not a single attractive potential opponent.

One of the most common criticisms of boxing fans is that they’re repeatedly denied the biggest match-ups. I disagree. Most of the time, those match-ups are made, and for a very good reason: there the ones that bring in the most money. It seems the boxing public have lost the Mayweather-Paquiao fight, and we’re likely to lose the Gamboa-JuanMa as well. Gamboa has the potential to become the greatest Cuban fighter of all time, it is a crying shame Gamboa is not fighting in the dynamic and competitive welter-weight division, if that was the case we fans would not be waiting long for Mayweather or Paquiao to be de-throned as the top welter-weight fighters. Already a two-division titlist, Juan Lopez isn’t far from joining the likes of Miguel Cotto as one of the best Puerto Rican fighters of all time. These two need to fight each other – but we probably need the fight more.