By Dan Ambrose: WBO lightweight champion Terence Crawford (23-0, 16 KO’s) and challenger Yuriorkis Gamboa (23-0, 16 KO’s) weighed in on Friday for their fight tomorrow night on HBO from the CenturyLink Center, in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. Crawford, 26, weighed in at 134.8 lbs. His opponent 32-year-old Gamboa came in at slightly less at 134.4 lbs.
Crawford looked good, and almost at fighting weight. He’s not someone who drains down to make weight like some fighters do. He says he plans on moving up in weight after this fight so he’s going to need to put on some weight so that he can compete with guys like Ruslan Provodnikov.
This is an important fight for the 32-year-old Gamboa, because he’s at an age where he can’t afford to lose a fight like this. He’s missed out on a lot of important fights by not staying active in the past couple of years. Had he been busy during that time, he could have already gotten some big fights by now.
Gamboa needs to beat Crawford and expose him in this fight, and then continue to push Top Rank to let him fight one of their prize jewels in Mikey Garcia. That’s who Gamboa wanted to fight, but instead of getting him, Gamboa was given the bigger Crawford. Gamboa’s promoter 50 Cent thinks that Top Rank didn’t want to sacrifice Mikey because they see him as a valuable asset. They were willing to sacrifice Crawford though.
In the co-feature, middleweight Matt Korobov (23-0, 13 KOs) weighed in at 160 lbs. His opponent knockout artist Jose Uzcategui (22-0, 18 KO’s) weighed in at 160 lbs. Uzcategui had to strip down in order to make the weight, but he was able to do it without having to go back stage to lose some extra weight. The Karobov-Uzcategui is scheduled for 10 rounds.
Official Weights from Omaha:
Terence Crawford: 134.8 lbs.
Yuriorkis Gamboa: 134.4 lbs.
Matt Korobov: 160.0 lbs.
Jose Uzcategui: 160.0 lbs.
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