By Chris Williams: Bob Arum, the promoter for both for former WBA featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa (21-0, 16 KO’s) and the current WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios (28-0-1, 21 KO’s), says he wants to match Gamboa and Rios up against each other sometime in 2012.

Arum isn’t saying exactly when, and knowing him, he could end up waiting too long on this fight like he did with the Juan Manuel Lopez vs. Gamboa fight he once had high hopes of putting together. Arum let that fight wait a couple of years, letting it slowly “marinate” until Lopez was finally knocked out. Now I guess Arum can still put the fight together, but the interest in the fight has plummeted.

Arum said this to Ringtv: “That is the game plan, for Gamboa and Rios to meet next year. I don’t know when, but it will be whenever we feel the cake is baked.”

The good news is Rios is taking on a soft touch on December 3rd in John Murray, so Rios isn’t likely to mess things up on his end by getting beaten and ruining the possible Gamboa-Rios fight. And for his part, Gamboa could be fighting in February of next year. Arum doesn’t say who it’ll be, but it’ll likely be no one seriously good. Arum has been very, very careful with Gamboa, and I expect that to continue into next year.

If Arum doesn’t skip 2012 for the Gamboa-Rios fight, I think it’s a bout that Rios may likely win at this point. He’s a lot bigger than Gamboa, and while he’s not as fast as him, he’s good at trapping his opponents and chopping them down. I think Gamboa would be in a world of hurt against Rios. We saw Gamboa struggle against Orlando Salido and Daniel Ponce De Leon. Well, Rios is a lot stronger than both of those guys and I think he’s just too big for Gamboa.

I see Arum letting the cake bake in 2012, and waiting until 2013 to finally put them together. Arum won’t want one of them to get beaten and lose their marketability. He’s very protective of his fighters, mainly putting them in situations where they’ll definitely win. Since this is an in house fight, Arum will be hurting himself by putting this bout together. I doubt he’ll make the fight because of that.