Junior featherweight titlist Juan Manuel Lopez, Puerto Rico’s emerging star, has been steadily built as a fighter and an attraction by promoter Bob Arum’s Top Rank since he signed with the company after the 2004 Olympics.
Arum signed another 2004 Olympian, electrifying Cuban gold medalist Yuriorkis Gamboa, to a co-promotional deal with Arena-Box Promotion earlier this year.
With few peers when it comes to building a big fight, Arum made his intentions clear as soon as Gamboa was under contract: He has designs on an eventual Gamboa-Lopez showdown.
“These are two exciting young fighters, and when they meet it’s going to be big,” Arum said.
But it’s not going to happen right away. Arum is like a cook working on a recipe. He wants this fight to simmer a bit longer until it’s ready — meaning until there is public and media demand for it.
After all, Lopez is at junior featherweight and set to make his fourth title defense, and Gamboa is at featherweight preparing for just his first defense. There’s certainly no rush.
However, the road to the showdown begins at the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York, where Lopez and Gamboa take center stage Saturday night (9 ET, Top Rank PPV, $39.95) on “Latin Fury 12.”
In the main event, Lopez (26-0, 24 KOs) defends against rugged Rogers Mtagwa (26-12-2, 18 KOs) of Philadelphia by way of Tanzania.
“He’s a guy that comes at you and throws a lot of punches,” Lopez said of Mtagwa. “He’s kind of awkward and throws punches from a lot of directions, and he plans to overwhelm you with punches. But he also leaves himself open, so you can counterpunch him and you can throw some real good punches at him. He’s not a good defender. I think if I put my punches together, I think he’s a guy that I can knock out.”
Gamboa (15-0, 13 KOs), who defected from Cuba and turned pro in 2007, puts his belt on the line against former junior lightweight title challenger Whyber Garcia (22-6, 15 KOs) of Panama.
Arum is the first to admit both of his young stars are heavy favorites, but he doesn’t dismiss either opponent.
“There always will be danger, because it’s a fight,” Arum said. “We’re not going to embarrass ourselves by putting them in with tomato cans. They’re fighting experienced guys, decent guys who can pull an upset. But that’s all part of the risk you take in this business. We’ll see how the fights play out, but eventually I want to put them together.”
If Lopez and Gamboa, both powerful punchers, are successful, the plan is to feature them together in a Jan. 23 doubleheader in Puerto Rico on HBO’s “Boxing After Dark.”
Lopez could meet unified titleholder Celestino Caballero, who has relentlessly called out Lopez for months and is willing to fight in Puerto Rico.
“If Caballero is reasonable with his purse demands, yes, we’d like to make that fight,” Arum said.
Arum said Gamboa would likely defend his title against contender Bernabe Concepcion.
If Lopez and Gamboa make it through that doubleheader, Arum said they could meet in June at Madison Square Garden.
“I am doing this and maybe one more fight at 122, and I am looking forward to going up to 126, and [Gamboa] is a fight that has been mentioned,” Lopez said. “If it can be done, great. It’s a great challenge for me, and I think it’s a great fight for both of us.”
Said Gamboa: “I do not lose focus in preparation for this fight, because I know that without winning this fight I can’t get to the bigger fight — Juan Manuel Lopez being one of them. I think a fight between ‘Juanma’ and me would make for a great fight.”
AP Photo/Alan Diaz
Yuriorkis Gamboa is focused on the task at hand — defeating Whyber Garcia.
Lopez is trying not to look ahead, despite all the grand plans and the fact he is the fighter most prominently mentioned whenever talk turns to future major bouts at junior featherweight and featherweight.
Caballero, for one, is after him.
“I know he is out there and I’m looking forward to shutting his mouth up once and for all,” Lopez said. “I am just looking forward to [Saturday], and there are some big names out there that I can fight, and whoever is next, is next.”
There’s talk of a fight with former junior featherweight champ Israel Vazquez, who debuts at featherweight in his own fight Saturday in Los Angeles.
“Without a doubt, I am going to be rooting for him to win,” Lopez said. “I am going to win on the same night and I do look forward to fighting him in the future.”
Top Rank stablemate and featherweight titlist Steven Luevano is another fighter Arum has talked about matching with Lopez. And there is, of course, Gamboa.
“It’s a big compliment when people talk to me like that, about me being the centerpiece,” Lopez said. “It is not only me. My company [Top Rank] has worked and my team has worked to put me at this point in my career, and now it is up to me to do what they expect me to do.
“The opportunities are out there, but we have to take them one step at a time. We can’t run to them. I know I am not a rookie anymore, but I am not at the elite level yet and I need a big fight that will put me at the elite level. I am working towards that. We are all working towards that.”
Todd duBoef, president of Top Rank, believes Lopez is the linchpin for the biggest fights in the two divisions because of the company’s deliberate efforts to build him as an attraction in Puerto Rico and the United States. Saturday’s bout will be his first as a headliner in New York, where Puerto Rican fans have flocked to fights involving Felix Trinidad and, more recently, Miguel Cotto — one of Top Rank’s biggest stars. Lopez looks like the next in that line of attractions.
“We develop these business models around these young men, that they become the epicenter of where the storm is,” duBoef said. “There are people out there that know where the money is and the fighters that are the biggest attractions.
“There are two kinds of clocks with these young fighters: One is their marketability clock and one is their boxing ability clock. When we have a guy that is in the epicenter of these big fights being done with the different types of opponents that he has in front of him, we have to take both of those things into consideration. Mtagwa is going to be a fight that you are on pins and needles with. [Lopez] had a run of three or four first-round knockouts, and that was great for his marketability. But the truth is, what did it do for his boxing ability? We don’t know. So these types of matches are the types that will test him, make him a better fighter and an attraction at the same time.”
