Why did Top Rank kill Garcia-Gamboa fight

By Boxing News - 03/18/2014 - Comments

garcia7867By Robert “Big Moe” Elmore: I read Top Rank Promoter Bob Arum’s comments about matching rising featherweight star Mickey Garcia and Cuban Yurioskis Gamboa. There are two sides to this coin and let’s starts with heads. Gamboa was set to fight Brandon Rios in 2012. Gamboa reneged on the contract that was signed because he reportedly unhappy with his 1.1 million dollar pay day. He also stated that there was never a contract to fight Rios.(http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/boxing/top-rank-sues-yuriorkis-gamboa-brandon-rios-now-213642277.html)

Gamboa skipped two press tours thus causing Top Rank to take legal action against Gamboa. The Cuban was then picked up rapper turned promoter Curtis Jackson. But since signing with Jackson, he’s only had two fights. Arum has expressed doubts that Gamboa would do the same to Garcia that he did to Rios. I can see why Arum would be skeptical about putting this fight together. Top Rank took a hit (financially) putting down money for a press tour and everything that came with promoting the fight.

But given Top Rank’s recent runs of in house matches, I can’t say I’m shocked that this fight isn’t taking place. For one, Gamboa is not a Top Rank fighter. Two, this would mean a co promotion with Curtis Jackson’s SMS Promotions, which very unlikely. The only way I see I see this happening is if Top Rank were to borrow Gamboa’s service and let SMS Promotions and the Cuban divvy up the money as they see fit. Now this has nothing to do with Pac or Mayweather, yet Arum found a way to kill this fight.

Again, Gamboa gave Top Rank a smoke screen they could use. I would advise no one to get there hopes up about seeing Top Rank fighters fight outside the stable. Top Rank already wants to match up the winner of Tim Bradley and Pac with the winner of Mike Alvarado and Juan Manuel Marquez. And there has already been talks about moving featherweight champ Mickey Garcia up to welterweight to fight Pac sometime in the near future. But this will require Pac to re- up with Top Rank.

This is one of the main reasons Golden Boys fight cards are so much better than Top Ranks in my view. Just look at the April 19th card Golden Boy has prepared; IBF champ Bernard Hopkins will face WBA champ Beitbut Shumenuv in a unification bout; Peter Quillin defends his WBO title against Lukus Konecny and new crowned Shawn Porter will defend his title against two time champ Paulie Maliggnaggi. If Top Rank were to put together a fight card with some of their stars, they would surely do great numbers on pay per view. But because Top rank is so thin at 140 and 147, they choose to spread these cards out. The past few Top Rank cards have been weak and they need to step it up. As for Gamboa, he needs to seriously sit down and figure a direction for his career. As of right now, he is simply wasting his talent.



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