OnThEGRinD BoXiNG

Tuesday April 21st, 2009
by K.M Stansen

Gamboa has produced some early negatives but even in acknowledging that he’s produced overwhelming positives. It would be useless to go over his amateur accomplishments as they are so grand, yet are still elegantly overshadowed by the brilliant Guillermo Rigondeaux’s extraordinary accomplishments, but as a pro so far he can only be denied by flash knockdowns and polarized opposites in certain fans.

Gamboa busted onto the pro circuit in early 2007 and ferociously provided us with a string of impressive blowouts over solid European level journeymen that most hype job types would have had their struggles with. In just his sixth in ring affair, he faced top 20 worthy Adailtan De Jesus, who is respectively of gate keeper quality and gave Gamboa his first flash knockdown, aside from the knockdown, Gamboa crucified De Jesus for six rounds until the ref called it off. After a blowout against a tomato can, Gamboa then faced Johnny Edwards, a solid journeyman who has since Koed a shot Freddie Norwood and had never been stopped otherwise, yet Gamboa flawlessly iced him him in the 1st. Things are looking amazing by this point….

Next Gamboa faced a real danger man in Darling Jimenez, whom was inactive but coming off of a 3rd round early icing of former hype machine ‘Mighty’ Mike Anchondo. Jimenez has real applicable punching power, fairly good skills and solid timing and he gave Gamboa measurable trouble, including putting him on the canvas once, but like the trend that has continued amongst Gamboa opponents, by the end of the early rounds Jiminez shelled up and went on the defensive just to survive the onslaught, his face looked like hamburger meat after the fight. Gamboa showed tremendous workrate, tremendous timing, tremendous speed of hand and foot and at least showed he has a solid beard because Jimenez timed him well consistently in this bout. Then to my disbelief, some people began comparing Gamboa to a severe product of hype and red carpet treatment poster boy Amir Khan, despite the fact that Khan has proven he can last all 1 round with a gate keeper level punchers.

Gamboa in the Jimenez fight exposed his unrefined defensive skills and exposed lapses that would continue in his next set of fights, to which all raised differing levels of doubts amongst sport connoisseurs.

He was put down by an elbow by another solid top 20 worthy fighter in Marcos Ramirez and while it’s sketchy to judge a knockdown on a flush elbow, Ramirez still timed him well still and Gamboa remained in reckless stylistic fashion even though he otherwise impressively destroyed Ramirez, who has never been down in just 2 rounds of action. The Roger Gonzalez bout was probably the worst performance of Gamboa’s short career, Gonzalez fought in there only to survive but Gamboa was yet again put on the floor by a flush shot that caught him off balance, but the worst factor was not that he was hurt but that he didn’t anticipate it, leading us to wonder how an elite counter puncher would smack him around, never the less, Gonzalez didn’t win any rounds outside of the round he scored the knockdown in and was prematurely stopped in the 10th, to Gamboa’s credit he beat Gonzalez ragged.

By this point I was having my doubts, though I continued to believe that his supernatural physical gifts would carry over into an increase of skill soon and that he’d begin the journey to fulfill the Gamboa prophecy and in the process prove all of the naysayers to be incorrect. Of course, the other side of the coin stated that at his age of 27 and the immense amateur experience created habits that will not leave and that he is what he is.

However, the very next follow up fight showed me a glimmer of hope, Gamboa faced journeyman Walter Estrada and patiently worked his way in, waited for the perfect opening and then bombed him with a peach of a counter that ended in the fight in the 1st round. The key element in the equation…. ‘patiently’.

This has been repeated in skillful fashion to my utmost satisfaction by Gamboa’s fantastic schooling and breaking down of Jose Rojas this past weekend, whom doesn’t have a title worthy record but has troubled plenty of good fighters, including current Featherweight top dog Chris John in two affairs. Gamboa displayed to me an increase in patience, boxing skill, defensive skill, defensive anticipation and the only knock against his performance is that he was relatively conservative in it, ironic, especially being that people accused him of performing as an uncontrolled wild man prior to it.

If the improvements continue and I personally believe they will, he will live up to expectations and then some. Gamboa is a very special physically specimen and can adaptively improve quickly, even an early loss would be anything in the area of a big deal and I suspect that with his gym habits that he’ll retain near peak speed until his mid 30s, leaving all the time in the world to cut a bloody swath through the 126 and 130 ranks.

Read Pt I Here

Regards,
K.M. Stansen