"They're going to fight January 23rd in Puerto Rico. Yuriorkis is going to fight Bernabe Concepcion and we're going to take Juan Manuel to California to have the nutritionist look at him and to see if he's hurting himself going down to 122. If he is, we'll move him right away to 126," promoter Bob Arum stated as he spoke to Steve Kim of Maxboxing.com about the future plans of Yuriorkis Gamboa and Juan Manuel Lopez.
Many fans were hoping to see Gamboa take on fellow stablemate and WBO super bantamweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez, but after Lopez had a tougher than expected time dealing with Rogers Mtagwa this past Saturday, perhaps it might be wiser to match Lopez with a "softer" touch should he indeed decide to move up to the featherweight division. Gambos is coming off another impressive and dominating fourth round stoppage victory over outclassed Whyber Garcia (22-7, 15 KOs). "I want to face whoever thinks that they're better than me. I want to prove that I'm the best in the world," Gamboa commented immediately after his performance.
Apparently, Bernabe Concepcion (29-2-1, 16 KOs) feels he's up to the challenge of proving that he's better than the Cuban star. In his last bout, Concepcion was disqualified against WBO featherweight champion Steven Luevano when he landed an extremely late punch after the bell to end the seventh round. Although it was only the second loss for the young Pacquiao protege, he'll have a tough task in front of him when he takes on Gamboa (16-0, 14 KOs), who is a lot faster and packs a lot more punch than Luevano.
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