By Dan Ambrose: In a really bad sign that something isn’t going right, Yuriorkis Gamboa (21-0, 16 KO’s) blew off his Monday press conference with former WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios (29-0-1, 22 KO’s) for some reason, and it’s got more than a few people thinking Gamboa may pull the same act on Tuesday for his scheduled Los Angeles, California press conference with Rios to hype their April 14th fight at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.

It’s unclear why the 31-year-old former IBF/WBA featherweight champion Gamboa decided not to show up. Gamboa has a contract with Top Rank it’s extremely doubtful he’ll be able to squeeze out of the contract without their permission if that’s what Gamboa’s intentions are for not showing up. It’s an odd situation because the April 14th fight with Rios is reportedly selling well and would likely be a sell out fight. It would also be by far the biggest fight of Gamboa’s five year pro career. To walk out now seems incredibly strange. Rios is flying to Los Angeles to attend Tuesday’s press conference in that city, but you have to wonder whether Gamboa will show up for that one as well.

There’s talk going around that Gamboa isn’t happy with the money that he’s getting for this fight given the risk he’s taking by moving up in weight two divisions to fight lightweight Rios. Indeed, it’s a tough ask for Gamboa because he looked small when he was fighting at super featherweight and decided to move down to featherweight where he could dominate. However, in moving up all the way to the lightweight division to face a guy like Rios, who is big for the weight, Gamboa could be a lot smaller come fight time on April 14th. Rios couldn’t make the weight for the 135 pound class in his last fight against John Murray last December and ended up losing his titles on the scales. Gamboa would likely be facing a welterweight or junior middleweight sized Rios on April 14th and that would be really tough for him. I wouldn’t have recommended that he take this fight to begin with because Rios has been struggling with the weight and you can imagine how big he’ll blow up to after he rehydrates.

If Gamboa blows off tomorrow’s press conference as well as the fight, we could see a substitute in order to save the fight date. You can’t expect a big name along the lines of Gamboa, but at least Rios will still be able to fight.