Photo Credit: Hogan Photos
It’s safe to say the window is closed for Yuriorkis Gamboa. The former featherweight titlist, who just signed with Golden Boy Promotions this year in hopes of rebuilding his career, was floored twice by underdog Robinson Castellanos in route to a seventh round corner stoppage.
Although sporting a 23-12 record, Castellanos was the more fundamentally sound fighter. Gamboa looked heavy, exhibited sloppy punch technique, and little of the speed that once made him a P4P talent. His flashy potshots couldn’t hurt the larger Castellanos, who began looking to the time the right hand by the end of the second.
The straight right hand would floor Gamboa late in the third. The counter came off a wide Gamboa left hook. The Cuban tasted the canvas again in the fourth, this time off a lead overhand right just 30 seconds into the round. Gamboa survived, but couldn’t find a rhythm to turn the fight around.
Castellanos would land three solid left hooks throughout the seventh, and a flurry of body shots when Gamboa attempted to hold at round’s end. It was not a bad beating, but the pace, coupled with Gamboa’s poor conditioning, made him decide to not come out for the eighth.
Hindsight is 20/20, but we now know Gamoba leaving Top Rank was the worst decision of his career. Since then, his activity has been wildly inconsistent. The 50 Cent signing made matters even worse. Now he’s 35 and his greatest asset, superb reflexes and speed, are completely gone. Golden Boy can’t even feed him to one of their prospects if he can’t even get past a journeyman-level talent like Castellanos.
I guess the timing is finally right to make Gamboa-JuanMa.
