The greatest fighter you might not be paying attention to is fighting Saturday night on Atlantic City's Boardwalk. Maybe it's because if you haven't watched him fight yet, he's easy to miss. According to statistics, Yuriorkis Gamboa is about the same size as your girlfriend. He's under 5-foot-6 and will be stepping into the ring at around 126 pounds. Chances are, he throws a little faster and hits a lot harder than your girlfriend though.
I'll go one better: he has faster feet and hands than Floyd Mayweather Jr. ever had. His defense hasn't been much most of the time, but sometimes, defense gets in the way when you're trying to make a statement. Make no mistake about Gamboa, with the years he lost before defecting from Cuba after winning at the Olympics, he's looking to make up for lost time.
He's already 29, but he's only been fighting as a pro for four years since he stepped onto a speedboat. He's knocked down or knocked out nearly every opponent he's faced, but he doesn't just knock people down or knock them out, he ignites audiences in a way most observers haven't seen since an early Mike Tyson.
His last fight was against Jorge Solis. Manny Paquiao took eight rounds to knock out Solis. Yuriorkis Gamboa took half the time to accomplish the same result, and that was after knocking him down repeatedly, round after round, in a demolition.
I'm taking someone to this fight tomorrow night. It's the first fight she's ever seen live. For my money, it might make watching anyone else in the sport feel like a let down.