Yuriorkis Gamboa knocked down Jorge Solis five times in four rounds on Saturday, retaining his World Boxing Association (WBA) featherweight title with a fourth-round technical knockout.
Gamboa remained unbeaten, improving to 20-0 with 16 knockouts, while Mexico’s Solis fell to 40-3-2 with 29 wins inside the distance.
Cuban-born Gamboa sent Solis to the canvas twice in the second round, once in round three and twice in round four, before referee David Fields called a halt at 1 minute, 31 seconds of the fourth.
Photo: AFP
“It was a very good fight,” Gamboa said through an interpreter. “I am completely different from [earlier in my career]. The package is complete.”
Despite the exciting victory, Gamboa won’t leave Atlantic City with his International Boxing Federation (IBF) belt.
He failed to participate in the IBF’s mandatory secondary weigh-in, which requires a fighter to remain within 10 pounds (4.5kg) of the division limit, so that title will become vacant.
His WBA title is also something of a shared honor, since the WBA also recognizes unbeaten “champion in recess” Chris John of Indonesia.
John, who boasts a record of 44-0 with two drawn and 22 knockouts, is set to fight countryman Daud Cino Yordan in Jakarta on April 17.
The WBA last year ordered a fight between Gamboa and John and the plan was to have them fight later this year, but Todd DuBoef of promoters Top Rank said last week that match-up might not happen.
Another possible Asian foe for Gamboa would be the other major title holder, World Boxing Council champion Hozumi Hasegawa of Japan, 29-3 with 12 knockouts.
US fans are clamoring for Gamboa to take on Juan Manuel Lopez, holder of the lightly regarded World Boxing Organization belt, who was at ringside on Saturday.
“I’ll fight anyone now,” Gamboa said.
No matter what’s in store for Gamboa, he underscored his status as one of the world’s top featherweights with his sensational performance against Solis.
He dropped the Mexican twice in the second round, first with a left hook and then with an overhand right.
Just before the bell to end the third, he sent Solis down again with a big left hook to the jaw.
Gamboa, 29, was making the fifth defense of the WBA title he earned in 2009, two years after he defected from Cuba and made his pro debut.
He had won Olympic gold for Cuba in the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.
Gamboa, who trained for a week in Japan, leaving a week before the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the nation, remembered the stricken country after the bout.
“God bless the brothers in Japan,” he told a television interviewer. “We’re with them.”
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