By William MacKay: In the latest boxing news, super featherweight Yuriorkis Gamboa’s trainer was apparently dismissed following last Saturday’s fight with Darling Jimenez in Las Vegas, a bout in which Gamboa was knocked down in the 4th round and hit often throughout the 10-round bout. Though Gamboa showed impressive offensive skills, his defense was what seemed to turn off many of the fans in the arena and those watching at home, for he held his hands low at his sides and was hit much too often for a fighter as ranked as high as he is (#5 in the WBC).

After the fight, Gamboa’s promoter Ahmet Oner reportedly let trainer Osmiri Fernandez go, replacing him with Orlando Cueller. Obviously, something had to be done, but this should have been noticed – Gamboa’s lack of defense – early on and should have been corrected well before he got to this stage.

As it is, it’s questionable whether or not Gamboa has the ability to make huge changes in his defense at this stage in his career. He’s been fighting his entire career with his hands held low, winning a Gold Medal in the 2004 Olympics in the flyweight division for the Cuban National team, and his lack of defense wasn’t exposed during all of this time.

Then again, his opponents during his amateur career had less time to land shots on him than Jimenez did in their recent 10-round bout. It remains to be seen whether Gamboa can change his defense enough for him to be able to compete against the top fighters in the division. From my vantage point, Gamboa looked nothing like a top fighter, much less a future champion. Clearly, it will be a hard sell for Gamboa to be continued to be pushed as if he is a future star given his disastrous performance against Jimenez. I imagine the television networks will be soon abandoning him like rats fleeing from a sinking ship.

Unless he turns things around very quickly, I can see his 15 minutes of fame evaporating almost overnight. Already, most internet boxing forums have little good to say about Gamboa and his future chances in becoming a champion. Besides his badly leaky defense, Gamboa’s offense also was less then thrilling to watch, with his weak flurries that he constantly threw, seeming just to score points. They may have did the job to win the fight against Jimenez, but, Man, it was incredibly boring to watch. It’s passable for an average fighter to fight like that, but not a fighter that is being hyped as a future star.

Believe me, quality fighters don’t fight like that and if they do, they don’t command much interest from the fans. This was Gamboa’s shot at winning fans, but it appeared he did little other than turn off many of them with his fighting style. I’m afraid he’s going to have to start from the very beginning, starting with his awful defense and then go from there and learn how to put power in his shots. He doesn’t have a lot of time to do this, however, before people lose interest completely in him, which is probably why he’s already scheduled to fight on June 27th. Let’s hope for his sake that he shows some improvement, but I’m not counting on it.