Yuriorkis Gamboa wants to show he’s the top champion of them all

By Brett Okamoto

Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2010 | 5:55 p.m.

Yuriorkis Gamboa believes he's the best featherweight boxer in the world.

Now, he'd just love the opportunity to prove it.

Gamboa (18-0, 15 KO) will look to keep his perfect record intact Saturday when he meets IBF champion Orlando Salido (34-10-2, 22 KO) at The Pearl at The Palms.

Although the fight is an opportunity for Gamboa to defend his regular WBA title a fourth time and add the IBF belt to his collection, defeating an opponent like Salido won't do much to prove he's the best 126-pounder in the world.

And Gamboa knows it.

"Obviously, I don't make the odds," said Gamboa, who is listed as high as an 11-to-1 favorite in the fight. "But what I can tell you is that my boxing and (Salido's) boxing is not on the same level."

To this date, Gamboa believes the greatest achievement of his boxing career was winning the gold medal for Cuba in the 2004 Olympic Summer Games.

Part of the reason nothing in his professional career has surpassed that, including a TKO win over Jose Rojas for the interim WBA title in 2009, is because Gamboa feels he's never been able to enjoy the distinction of "champion" to himself.

Currently, Gamboa is one of six fighters who can claim partial ownership of a featherweight title. Chris John, Juan Manuel Lopez, Elio Rojas, Rafael Marquez and Salido are the other five.

Gamboa won't be satisfied until he takes out every other fighter on the list and is hopeful a featherweight tournament, like the Super Six Tournament currently on Showtime, could happen in the near future.

"Winning the Olympic medal is far greater than anything else I've achieved in my career," Gamboa said. "I would think a tournament of the best champions in the world is the only thing (that could top it).

"That's how you should figure out who is the best — bring the top six guys together and the winner is the best."

While a featherweight tournament seems unlikely in the near future, a bout between Gamboa and Lopez (29-0, 26 KO), widely regarded as the two most talented of the bunch, seems inevitable.

Both champions fight under the Top Rank banner and a matchup of the two likely would be a top candidate for a proposed blockbuster event in the spring at the new Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

Gamboa and Lopez have fought on the same card twice in the last year. When Lopez traveled to Puerto Rico for his July fight against Bernabe Concepcion, Gamboa managed to find his way to the arena to watch.

According to Top Rank officials, Lopez, who is scheduled to fight Marquez on Nov. 6 in Las Vegas, will return the favor this weekend and be in attendance Saturday.

"All I can tell you is I do enjoy going to his fights, and I look forward to one day, if we do fight," Gamboa said. "Right now, I know they don't want him to fight me because he's not ready. When they do think he's ready, they'll put him in front of me."

Although Gamboa looks forward to a day he can stand alone at the top of the division, the 28-year-old says he's dedicated to not overlooking any of the steps it will take to get there.

He might not consider Salido's abilities to be at his level, but Gamboa says he recognizes the spotlight he'll be under headlining a Las Vegas event on a HBO broadcast.

"This is a big opportunity for me," Gamboa said. "I want to fight the best in the world and I think of it as this is the guy to get to the next guy and the next guy.

"That's the objective — to demonstrate that I'm the best champion out of all the champions. This is a perfect opportunity for me to fight another champion and show that. As we do that, slowly but surely we'll be the No. 1 in the world."

Brett Okamoto can be reached at 948-7817 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at LVSunFighting