Gamboa-Ponce De Leon takes place on September 10th

By Boxing News - 07/28/2011 - Comments

By Eric Thomas: With Juan Manuel Lopez’s defeats removing any chances of a fight between Lopez and Yuriorkis Gamboa (20-0, 16 KO’s) for the time being, Gamboa will instead turn his attention to former World Boxing Organization (WBO) super bantamweight champion Daniel Ponce De Leon (41-3, 34 KO’s) for a fight on September 10th at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Neither Gamboa nor De Leon are champions at this time, but they are two very good featherweights. In Gamboa’s case, he’s considered the best in the division right now. Bob Arum of Top Rank had been planning on matching Lopez and Gamboa up to find out who truly was the best fighter in the division, but Lopez unfortunately was picked off by the tough Mexican Orlando Salido and taken out in an 8th round TKO loss. Since Gamboa already beat Salido by a 12 round decision, it’s academic that Gamboa is the top guy right now.

In interesting fact about the Gamboa-Ponce De Leon fight is that this is a bout between fighters that work for separate promoters. Gamboa is promoted by Top Rank, while De Leon works for Golden Boy Promotions.

This is a rare fight where Golden Boy fighters mix it up with Top Rank guys. Hopefully, this is just the beginning of more fights like this. It’s getting really boring to see these two rival promotional companies mainly fighting in house fights involving their fighters. That kind of thing turns boxing into small clubs.

The Gamboa vs. Ponce De Leon fight will be shown by HBO along with the WBC heavyweight replay involving champion Vitali Klitschko vs. Tomasz Adamek, a fight that be shown earlier at noon.

Gamboa has been pretty much wiping out all of his opponents in the past couple of years. In his last fight, he obliterated Jorge Solis in a 4th round TKO, and in the fight before that, Gamboa rather easily defeated a very good Orlando Salido by a lopsided 12 round decision. Gamboa recently had his titles stripped from him for not defending them against the guys that he was supposed to.

Ponce De Leon recently moved up to super featherweight to take on the always quick Adrien Broner and lost by a controversial decision. But with that experiment behind him, Ponce De Leon will be back at featherweight for the Gamboa fight.

What makes the De Leon-Gamboa fight so interesting for boxing fans is that both De Leon and Gamboa are sluggers. Gamboa will box if he has to but he prefers to trade if he thinks he can win. De Leon hits hard and will be looking for a knockout from the second the fight starts. If Gamboa can’t take him out, he’s going to have to use movement to win because this could get really messy for Gamboa.



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