By Jim Dower: To no great surprise, the previously scheduled April 14th fight between former WBA World lightweight champion Brandon Rios and Yuriorkis Gamboa is now officially off. Rios was still interested in fighting even with Gamboa out.
Top Rank, the promoters for both fighters, attempted to find a suitable replacement that HBO would agree on, but they couldn’t agree on the replacement opponent that Top Rank had in mind. According to Dan Rafael, the replacement that could still be facing Rios on April 14th, albeit without HBO showing it, could be #1 WBA lightweight contender Richard Abril (17-2-1, 8 KO’s), which is the same fighter that got into an argument with Rios at the Los Angeles press conference and pushed him when Rios told him to speak to his promoter Bob Arum if he wanted to get a fight with him. Abril has losses to Hank Lundy and Breidis Prescott, which might explain HBO’s disinterest in agreeing to him, if it was him that was the fighter mentioned to replace Gamboa. HBO was going to pay $2 million to televise the Rios vs. Gamboa fight.
Top Rank has reportedly filed a breach of contract suit against Gamboa in U.S federal court in Nevada due to Gamboa having allegedly agreed to take the fight with Rios. Supposedly, Gamboa received $70,000 in a cash advance for agreeing to take the fight with Rios.
Gamboa blew off two press conferences in Miami, Floria and Los Angeles, California to start the problems showing that he had no interest in going forward with the fight.
Rios will likely end up facing Abril on 4/14 or someone of his level. It’s not exactly the most interesting fight you can think of because Abril uses a lot of movement and tends to box mostly. He doesn’t have much power and probably stands no chance against a fighter like Rios. Compared to the all action Gamboa, Abril is a much less appealing opponent and it’s hard to get motivated for a mismatch like this. It might not make for good television on HBO.
Cameron Dunkin, the manager for Rios, says that Abril is the leading guy for the Rios fight. Dunkin said “I don’t know how you pass on Brandon Rios against anyone. He’ll make it a fun fight every time out, so it’s a shame.”
You can’t blame HBO for passing on a mismatch between Rios and Abril. It’s not good television when you have mismatches in the main even going into the fight. Abril is a mover and would be chased all night. I doubt Rios would be able to catch up to him to score a stoppage and it would be a fight where Rios would win but not impress.