Gamboa/Lopez card moves from Marlins Park
The Nov. 10 card will still take place in Miami.
The scheduled Nov. 10 card featuring the returns of Yuriorkis Gamboa and Juan Manuel Lopez, with the intention to match them against one another later, won’ be taking place at Marlins Park in Miami after all.
The card is still good to go in Miami, but has changed venues to the Miami-Dade County Fair Expo Center, which is probably a better and more realistic idea.
Gamboa (28-2, 17 KO) will face veteran Miguel Beltran Jr (33-6, 22 KO) in the lightweight main event, while Lopez (35-6, 32 KO) will take on Cristian Mino (19-2, 17 KO) in the co-feature. If they both win, then they’ll fight each other later.
Integrated Sports is producing the show for pay-per-view, which probably nobody will buy other than diehard fans of the main fighters.
Gamboa, 36, and Lopez, 35, were once potential dance partners for one of the hottest and most desired fights in the sport, but that was years ago, so long that we’ve all been making Bob Arum “marination” jokes for the better part of a decade because of the lost potential of Gamboa-Lopez.
In recent years, they’ve both faded. Gamboa has only two losses, but some bad business decisions have hurt his career as he’s aged, too. He hasn’t fought in almost a year, since a controversial decision win over Jason Sosa, and has won two straight. Lopez has been stopped in all six of his losses, and has lost four of his last six dating back to 2013. He won a grudge match with Wilfredo Vazquez Jr in November 2016, but was last seen getting stopped by Jayson Velez in March of this year.
Still, Gamboa-Lopez, if it happens, does have some appeal. A matchup between aged but entertaining fighters could still be worth a watch, even if there is no real upside for the winner.