By Allan Fox: This Saturday night, WBO lightweight champion Terence Crawford (23-0, 16 KO’s) will be making his first title defense against unbeaten former IBF/WBA featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa (23-0, 16 KO’s) in what could prove to be the most difficult fight of the 26-year-old Crawford’s career when the two of them face each other at the CenturyLink Center, in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. The fight will be televised by HBO.
For Crawford, this will be his first fight in which he faces a guy with hand speed similar to his own, and with amateur experience greater than his own. Up until this fight, Crawford has been fighting guys that didn’t have the amateur pedigree that he came from, but in facing Gamboa, Crawford will be taking on a guy with an Olympic gold medal from the 2004 Olympics, and extensive fights at the amateur level.
This is a tough fight to really predict because both guys are so good. Gamboa has the power and hand speed advantage in this fight, and could very well out-box the slower Crawford if he can stay on his feet for the entire 12 rounds.
That’s one thing that you don’t know about with Gamboa. His chin is his weak spot, and if Crawford can knock him down 2-3 times, he could win a decision. But if Gamboa is able to stay on his feet, he’s going to make it awfully tough on Crawford to try and beat him. Crawford isn’t going to be able to counter punch his way to victory against a fighter as skilled as Gamboa. He’s going to need to apply himself and come forward with his own offensive attack otherwise it could go badly for Crawford.
On the undercard, middleweights Matt Korobov and Jose Uzcategui will be fighting a 10 round bout. Welterweights Mikael Zewski and Prince Doku Jr, and unbeaten light middleweight Konstantin Ponomarev will be taking on journeyman Hector Munoz in a 10 round bout.
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