By Chris Williams: Former IBF/WBA featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa (21-0, 16 KO’s) will be moving up in weight to face journeyman Rocky Juarez (28-9-1, 20 KO’s) in a non-title bout scheduled for 12 rounds on March 3rd on HBO at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.

This is a test bout for the 29-year-old Gamboa to see how well he does against a super featherweight, although the fight will reportedly take place at a catchweight above the super featherweight limit. Gamboa and his promoters want him to move up to the super featherweight and lightweight divisions to seek out bigger fights against some of the big names.

Gamboa’s promoter Bob Arum already blew the biggest fight that Gamboa could have made at featherweight by delaying a match-up against featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez too many years, wanting to let the fight “Marinate.” What happened was Arum let it marinate so long that the fight was spoiled when Lopez was beat by Orlando Salido this year. Now there’s really little point in making the match because Lopez still hasn’t even avenged the loss to Salido and there’s major questions about whether Lopez can in fact do that.

The next big fight that Arum would like to make for Gamboa is against one of his fighters’ former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios. However, Rios recently failed to make the 135 pound lightweight limit for his bout against Britain’s John Murray earlier this year and ended up losing his title on the scales.

Now it’s very likely that Rios will be moving up to 140 to campaign as a light welterweight. It’ll be a big ask for Rios to sweat down to 135 again or lower to fight a bout against Gamboa. That’s obviously still an option it might be a rush job at this point for that fight to happen because Gamboa still has to prove that he can handle super featherweight opposition, let alone face a lightweight who can’t make the weight anymore.

Gamboa should beat Juarez without any problems, but Gamboa’s management obviously want to see him do it with ease. He’ll have to if they’re serious about wanting to put him in with the best fighters at lightweight and super featherweight. An ideal fight would be for Gamboa to face WBO super featherweight champion Adrien Broner for his title. Unfortunately nothing is being said about Gamboa taking that fight, perhaps because Broner is a beast at super featherweight. He’s got speed similar to Gamboa but more size, power and better defensive skills.

It would be a very dangerous fight for Gamboa to take and it’s doubtful that Arum will allow Gamboa to take that risk. There are too many other beatable fighters for Gamboa to make money off and Broner could ruin the plans they have for Gamboa.

Juarez, 31, has lost his last five bouts and is really struggling. He’s known for having fought and lost world title challenges on five occasions against Marcos Antonio Barrera (twice), Juan Manuel Marquez, Chris John and Humberto Soto. Juarez was really jobbed in his first fight against John in February 2009 in a fight that was ruled a 12 round draw.

Juarez appeared to win that fight by at least four rounds in the minds of many boxing fans but had to settle for a draw. In the rematch against John in September 2009, Juarez lost by a 12 round decision. However, he fought well enough to at least to have gotten a draw but was stuck with a loss. That was really sad because Juarez well enough to win both fights with John and failed to get the win on both occasions. It kind of reminds one of the same situation that Juan Manuel Marquez experienced in his three fights with Manny Pacquiao. He fought well enough to win all three fights but ended up getting a draw in the first bout and then two close defeats in the next two.

Gamboa defeated Daniel Ponce De Leon by an 8th round technical decision last September in a fight that he looked decent but not great in. He fought defensively for the most part and took some big shots from De Leon but dominated with his superior hand speed and one punch at a time offense. He didn’t look overpowering, though, and it’s hard to imagine Gamboa dominating fighters at super featherweight or lightweight. He wants to fight Rios, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, but it’s doubtful he’d do well against any of them due to his lack of size. At 5’5”, Gamboa would be dwarfed by the 5’9” Rios and 5’8” Mayweather. Pacquiao, only 5’6 1/2”, wouldn’t have much of a height advantage over Gamboa but he would in terms of frame size, power and likely speed. It would be a mismatch, as would Gamboa against Rios and Mayweather.