Gamboa wants his management to keep him active

By Gavin Duthie - 06/30/2014 - Comments

gamboa5444By Gav Duthie: Yuriorkis Gamboa 23-1 (16) immediately took to twitter in the aftermath of his first professional defeat to Terrence Crawford 24-0 (17) to implore his management team to keep him active. 

Gamboa said on his twitter, “All I want to do is box. That is it. I am a boxer. A Cuban boxer. So if you are in charge please listen. Just let me box. Please.”

Gamboa is undoubtedly feeling quite low just now. Despite having to sell his Olympic Flyweight gold medal to support his family and having to defect from his native Cuba to become a pro boxer he has not been able to fully realise his dream. Yuriorkis along with heavyweight Odlandier Solis snuck out of a training camp in Venezuela in the middle of the night making their way to Germany via Columbia where they applied for visa’s to the USA. 

The struggles that Cubans need to go through to become a professional  are inconceivable compared to everywhere else. Despite coming through such adversity Gamboa has only fought 3 times since 2011. His fight on saturday was only his second at lightweight. Even Crawford himself admits that he saw the 5″5 inch Gamboa as no more than a featherweight. The Cuban has been so inactive recently he would have probably agreed to a fight with Wladimir Klitschko to get back into the ring. 

Gamboa is these days managed by a rapper, come actor, come boxing promoter Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson who runs SMS Promotions. I really wonder if they know what they are doing. Gamboa should be fighting at 130 lbs, maybe even 126. I’d like to see him fight a Mikey Garcia, Lomachenko, Nonito Donaire even a fight against fellow Cuban Guillermo Rigondaeux would be more feasible than continuing as a lightweight. To be fair to 50 cent, previous promoter Bob Arum at Top Rank tried to match Gamboa with Brandon Rios back in 2012, who is now boxing at 140/147. In my opinion, Gamboa has more talent in his thumb than Rios has in his whole body but I would have picked Rios to win that too based on size alone.  I know that there is more money in the 130-147 lb weight category’s but these promoters need to start looking at their fighters interests not their bank balance. 

I don’t want to take anything away from Crawford because Gamboa could probably beat 95% of the Lightweights out there. It’s a good win for the American Terence Crawford and I’ve said before he will go on to be a superstar. This doesn’t change the fact that Gamboa should not have been in the ring with him in the first place. 

It was unfortunate for Curtis Jackson that his joint venture with Floyd Mayweather didn’t work out but if he’s going to go it alone this is where he will show if he has any potential as a promoter. He needs to get Gamboa back in the ring quickly at a lower weight and protect his investment. Gamboa is 32 now and won’t go on for much longer than a couple of years. I hope that Crawford won’t be his defining fight. I still think he can dominate in the lower weights and its up to his management to sort this out. 



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