On Saturday, November 15, 2014, Yuriorkis Gamboa (23-1, 16 KOs) took on Joel Montes de Oca (18-3, 10 KOs) in a 10 round Lightweight bout.
The bout was held in Plaza de Toros, Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico and shown live on Fox Deportes.
After losing a thrilling fight-of-the year candidate bout earlier this year against Lightweight star in the making, Terence Crawford, Gamboa looked to bounce back against a lesser known opponent.
For Montes de Oca, Gamboa represented a tremendous step up in competition and it was evident early on that these two men did not belong in the ring together.
Gamboa was patient and showed the same unorthodox style that he has throughout his career, even flirting with a southpaw stance at times.
In the third round, Gamboa opened up by throwing more hooks and uppercuts in combination as Montes de Oca allowed Yuri to set the pace.
In Round 5, with things moving at a measured pace, Gamboa unleashed a three punch combo which ended with a clean left hook to the body that dropped Montes de Oca. The challenger could have packed it in and called it a night, but to his credit he got up and was forced to survive a wild assault from the 32-year-old Gamboa for the rest of the round.
In Round 6, Gamboa came out walking Montes de Oca down and quickly found an opening for a looping hook which wobbled and then dropped Montes de Oca. Montes de Oca got up, but didn’t respond confidently when the ref asked if he wanted to continue.
The sixth-round knockout gave Gamboa some good rounds after being knocked out in his previous bout and he now looks to get back into championship contention in 2015.
Against an opponent like Montes de Oca, the jerky movement and hands down defense worked just fine, but these are things that may be detrimental to Gamboa’s shot at capturing a world title.
