Current Gamboa VS Prime Casamayor at 130, who takes it?

OK, let's examine both of these Cuban future hall of famers ...

Casamayor = 1992 Olympic Gold medalist, plus had a tremendous amateur career.

Casamayor = had great defence, very fast hands, was a southpaw, had an excellent chin and much underrated KO power.

Gamboa = 2004 Olympic Gold medalist, plus a better amateur resume than Casamayor.

Gamboa = insanely fast, tremendous KO power in both hands, much better athlete and has a very underrated chin.

If they would have fought at 130lbs, who takes this battle of the great Cuban Champions?

I go with Gamboa by late TKO !

 

Wow, I see most of you going for Casa. But I think that all of that is because Casa fought the better opposition but it will soon change when Yuriorkis steps up. The only thing that Casa had better was in the Chin department as Casa had an iron Chin but everything else belongs to Gamboa including, speed, more KO power, explosiveness and athleticism. This is a very close fight for sure but like they say " speed is the key " and that key belongs to Gamboa. Also, Gamboa can also get dirty if he needs to.

While this is just a fantasy matchup, I would have never wanted to see 2 of Cuba's best featherweights going at it in the ring. Much less now that we know that they are from the same Cuban neighborhood of Guantánamo and Yuriorkis' father trained Casamayor when he was starting !!!

 

Good post mi amigo. Even though that Casamayor was my favorite fighter, I have to believe that Gamboa has too much for him. Now, if Gamboa didn't have that devastating speed combined with his KO power then I would really favor Casamayor as he was a great defensive wizard with great counterpunching ability. Also, they were both tremendous amateurs but Gamboa's resume is definitely better. :good

Saludos!

 

Well, I have to admit that Casamayor was as smart as they come in terms of ring intelligence. He was a complete master of every situation inside the ring. That's why he dominated the hard hitting Diego Corrales ( 2 wins, 1 loss ) and I still felt he won all the fights against Corrales. Casamayor, like the experts agreed " disected " his opponents with razor like accuracy and impenetrable defence. But I believe that Yuriorkis takes him mainly due to his incredible speed, athleticism and all out aggresive attacks. But this is a fight where both of them will visit the canvas, with Yuriorkis finally pulling the victory.

 

Well, if you look closely at Joel's first 20 fights compared to Yuriorki's 20 fights you will see that Gamboa has fought much better opposition. Casamayor started to fight the tough opponents beginning with freitas ( and he was 25-0 at that time ). So, in terms of fighting the better opponents early in their careers Gamboa is way ahead of Casamayor.

And don't forget that Gamboa has defeated current Interim Champ Jonathan Barros ( undefeated 28-0 when he fought Gamboa ), he defeated tough and rugged Orlando Salido, ( current WBO Champ and Lopez' conqueror ) and former World Champ Jorge Solis in his last performance.

Casamayor never did all of that in his first 20 fights! But I agree that Casamayor was a masterful boxer with very underrated power.