By Dan Ambrose: Former WBA World lightweight champion Brandon Rios (29-0-1, 22 KO’s) and former IBF/WBA featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa (21-0, 16 KO’s) will be getting it on in a Top Rank in house fight on April 14th at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. To go along with this fight, light welterweight contenders Mike Alvarado and Mauricio Herrera and will be battling it out. Kelly Pavlik possibly will be fighting on the card as well if Bob Arum can convince him to fight on the card rather than in March.

The Gamboa-Rios fight is one that is kind of interesting but needed a little more build up. Neither guy has beaten anyone worth noting and they both needed at least a couple of years before this fight would be really interesting. However, Gamboa is 30, and smaller guys like him tend to start losing their skills earlier than larger fighters. For that reason, it’s good that the fight is taking place now rather than later. Gamboa is obviously taking this risky fight in a hurry due to it leading possibly to a fight against Manny Pacquiao. With Pacquiao’s career winding down he may have little more than two or three fights remaining before he retires. Arum has already said that he’d like to match Rios against Pacquiao in 2013. If Gamboa can knock Rios off the map with a decisive win, then he could be the one that faced Pacquiao in 2013 instead of Rios. I say he could be because Arum sometimes matches guys that are coming off of losses in big fights rather than waiting for them to redeem themselves. But Gamboa will be in a good position if he can get past Rios for a Pacquiao fight.

Rios has the size advantage over Gamboa by a couple of inches and would also have a weight advantage against him. However, Gamboa is a lot quicker with his hands and won his feet. He would negate Rios’ size advantage and give him a lot of problems in the early rounds.