By Michael Collins: Former IBF/WBA featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa (21-0, 16 KO’s) could wind up on the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez 4 fight on December 8th, according to Steve Kim. Gamboa hasn’t fought since last year in September in beating Daniel Ponce De Leon. Gamboa has been out of action due to promotional problems in leaving Top Rank.
Gamboa was supposed to have moved up to lightweight to fight former WBA World lightweight champion Brandon Rios, but Gamboa failed to show up for the press conferences to promote the fight. Eventually, Top Rank replaced him with Richard Abril and he went on to fight Rios and lose by a controversial decision earlier this year in April. Gamboa had to go to court with Top Rank, and eventually Gamboa moved onto TMT Promotions. However, with nothing happening there, Gamboa could now find himself back on a Top Rank card having lost a year of his career.
One would hope that Gamboa can be included with this career because he needs to get busy. He’ll be turning 31 in December and he can’t afford to waste anymore time. As far as what weight class Gamboa will fight in, he could be fighting at super featherweight. That might be the smart move for him because there’s not much at featherweight other than looking to take on Mikey Garcia or Orlando Salido. Gamboa would likely be the best fighter at featherweight if he were interested in staying at that weight class, but there’s bigger money to be made if he moves up in weight to super featherweight and lightweight. Gamboa’s lack of size might be a problem for him if he were to make it up to lightweight, however, especially in taking on the bigger lightweights like Ricky Burns and Adrien Broner, both of which balloon up in weight after weighing in for their fights.