By Manuel Perez: in a stay busy fight, Cuban featherweight contender Yuriorkis Gamboa (13-0, 11 KOs) will take on journeyman Walter Estrada (35-8, 24 KOs) on February 20th in a scheduled 10-round bout at the University Center Arena, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Gamboa, 27, a former 2004 Olympic Gold Medalist for the Cuban team, is ranked #2 in the World Boxing Council featherweight division, #3 in the WBA, #6 in the WBO and #8 in the IBF, and has especially impressive since turning pro in 2007. Gamboa’s offensive skills are nothing short of extraordinary, in particular the manner in which he aggressively attacks his opponents from start to finish.
However, along with his mercurial offensive skills he has major defensive liabilities and has been dropped several times in his short career despite having fought mostly lower level opposition. If Gamboa’s chin can hold up for a little while longer, he’s almost destined to be a huge star in the boxing world. However, there are still some big questions whether or not Gamboa’s chin can hold up under the stress of facing one of the big punchers in the featherweight division.
Perhaps for this Gamboa moved down from the super featherweight division in 2008, allowing him to avoid big punchers like Humberto Soto and Jorge Linares. With his offensive power and high work rate, he’s hard to defend against because he often swarms his opponents.
In Gamboa’s last fight, he stopped Roger Gonzalez in the 10th round in January. However, Gamboa was dropped in the 2nd round. Gamboa came back strong and punished Gonzalez through much of the bout, then hurting him with a right uppercut to the head in the 10th. After hurting him, Gamboa unloaded with a blizzard of shots ending with a couple of nice rabbit shots, causing the referee to move and stop the fight.
It was a strange stoppage, because I have expected the referee to warn or penalize Gamboa for the skillful rabbit punches, but instead the referee stopped the fight and gave Gamboa the victory. Nevertheless, Gamboa would have finished Gonzalez off anyway rabbit shots or not, because he was badly hurt and unable to defend himself from the brutal onslaught of Gamboa.
Like most Gamboa fights, he was hit often and showed poor defensive skills. But in ignoring his defense, Gamboa was able to show off his impressive offensive skills as he hammered Gonzalez throughout the fight with big shots.
Gamboa should have little problem against Estrada, who isn’t ranked in the top 15 and will probably not see the 3rd round. Look for Gamboa to make quick work of him and take him out in spectacular fashion.