by James Slater – While fight fans want to see featherweight stars Yuriorkis Gamboa and Juan Manuel Lopez face each other even more due to how great both guys looked last night in New York, promoter Bob Arum has let it be known he will not be matching the two together right away. Arum, as quoted on Ring TV.com, wants the fight to build and build, to the point where it becomes absolutely massive.
Gamboa, a stunningly quick 2nd-round winner over the normally durable Rogers Mtagwa – who, of course, pushed Lopez all the way last year down at super-bantamweight – is anxious to face “Juanma,” and a number of fans seem to think he would be the winner; such thinking based largely no doubt on last night’s superb display of speed and power by the now 17-0(15) Cuban. But Lopez, who TKO’d the talented Steve Luevana in the 7th-round of his featherweight debut to improve to 28-0(25), is also a fine fighter and many fans feel it will be he who wins the hugely intriguing battle when it takes place. Indeed, this upcoming fight has already got all the hardcore boxing fans talking..
But Arum feels it is his job as promoter to try and make the fight one that will appeal to casual and hardcore fight fans alike.
“I want to wait and build this to be the biggest featherweight fight of all time,” Arum said post-fight in New York. “When they fight, they’ll fight to be the best featherweight in the world. I want to see those two clean out the featherweight division and I don’t want to see them rush to fight each other.”
In order for Gamboa and Lopez to “clean out” the 126-pound division, fights with top class men like Chris John, the “real” WBA champ at featherweight, Elio Rojas, the WBC ruler and Cristobal Cruz, the IBF champ will be necessary. And each of these potential fights would also be exciting and fan-friendly. Arum did mention Chris John’s name, as a potential foe for either Gamboa or Lopez in the summer; while Arum also spoke of a possible summer clash between either the Cuban or the Puerto Rican against super-bantamweight champ Celestino Caballero, who has been calling out Lopez for a long while now.
It sure is going to be exciting watching the two new stars of the featherweight division continuing to make their names big by winning quality fights; thus building up their inevitable showdown all the more. Fans won’t be able to wait too long for Gamboa-Lopez, though. How can this fight fail to set the sport on fire!