Gamboa outboxed Crawford, but drops his hands again WTF

And he's been dragged into brawls before, but managed to somehow win every time. This was a fascinating fight, because of how the entire fight see-sawed. Gamboa came out and showed no signs of ring rust. He looked sharp as ever, but Gamboa just got a little too loosey goosey with his offense around the 5th round. I think a lot of times when you look that impressive in the early stages of a match, you think you can dominate.

Something about Gamboa's hand movement, the way he covered up and mixed up his defense with his offense was really good. I forgot how entertaining this guy was. But maybe the ring rust showed up when he got dropped. Sometimes your whole game plan goes out the window when you get dropped like that. I think Gamboa just became too impatient as the fight wore on. He had to be ahead on the cards even after that first knocked down but he started to act like he was the one who needed the KO and started giving away rounds by leaving himself open and getting knocked down more and more.

I think to Crawford's credit, he didn't show his full hand in the early going and maybe made Gamboa think he was just an average fighter, and try to get Gamboa to punch himself out. As I was watching the first few rounds, I couldn't believe how ordinary Gamboa was making Crawford look. It looked pretty effortless Gamboa too and it was hard to see how Gamboa was going to be denied. The hometown crowd was stunned by how dominant Gamboa was early. But some of that was Crawford using the early stages to tire Gamboa out and study his attack. You rarely see fights like this that really told a story. Had a beginning middle and an end. After this performance, I feel like Gamboa has all the tools to be a world champion, but he's gotta make sure he uses the peek-a-boo style and block especially against a longer-armed outboxer like Crawford.

 

He didn't "drop his hands."

His hands are always down and always have been.

 

Defensive awareness is part of being a complete boxer. Gamboa has dropped his hand for years and been knocked down this time he was in with an elite fighter who exploited it even more. I said before the fight that if gamboa didn't get Crawford out of there in the first 4 rounds he would lose why because he's the better and more complete boxer. Gamboa is a front runner he tries to overwhelm with speed athleticism and power. He's flawed and limited I knew Crawford would beat him.

 

De-nial is not just a river in Africa.

 

:good

 

Gamboa is a front runner he always looks good early. The longer the fight went the worse it was for gamboa. He was in with a superior boxer I have no idea why you continue to deny this.

 

He did drop his hands!! look in the first round he had a very tight guard, it was true Peek-A-Boo style right??

He mixed up the cover-up block, with swaying and landing bombs. And he had such a speed advantage. But you know what they say, timing can beat speed, and Crawford learned Gamboa's timing and he became too predictable.

 

This, my friends, is a fanboy post at the finest (no offense to you, Green, but you have an interesting opinion on what happened).

He got worn down. He gassed a bit after the 4th round as he usually/eventually does. That's what happens when you fight with so much energy in your movement. You burn yourself out... None of those KD's were flukes.

In order for Gamboa to have had enough gas to survive the fight, he would have had to have fought at a vastly slower and less aggressive pace from the beginning, which makes analyzing the first 4 rounds with praise for him a bit odd.

 

Yeah.

But after he gassed a bit, by round 4, the gloves were down.

And we knew this was going to happen because it always does with Gamboa. I was actually surprised he had the energy to defend as well as he did toward the middle-end.

You can't fight like Gamboa fights and keep a high guard throughout a high action fight.

 

Well, it depends on who he's fighting. When he's fighting another brawler or a smaller boxer, then he doesn't need to guard as much. but against a guy like Crawford, he needed to block, because Crawford doesn't have much of any upper body movement, and Crawford is not going to be able to do any real body work on Gamboa. So against this particular fighter, he needed to guard his head more than usual to stuff the jab because Crawford was able to use that jab to set up bigger punches.