‘Bud’ seemed to struggle initially with the speed of Gamboa in the earlier rounds. Still, once the Cuban began to engage, only one winner as Crawford, had a significant size advantage over the challenger.
Crawford, 26, but the former featherweight king down hard in the fifth, which was the turning point in the fight, repeated the feat once in the eighth and twice in the ninth to force Gino Rodriguez to stop the contest.
Gamboa had his most significant success when catching Crawford in the previous round as the belt holder was in the midst of one of his many switches from orthodox to southpaw. Still, as he plowed forward in an attempt to capitalize, ‘El Ciclon’ was continually getting caught.
The end was crushing when it happened towards the end of round nine, with Gamboa still struggled with the first knockdown when Crawford caught him with a sweet uppercut to finish the argument.
In his post-fight interview with HBO’s Max Kellerman, Gamboa debated that he should have been allowed to continue, which could well have been the case with only seven seconds left in the session.
As it stands, Crawford gets the biggest win of his career, whilst Gamboa really should try and get back down to 130lbs as his slight frame will only result in more stoppage losses when he goes up against these bulkier operators at the lightweight limit.
Follow on Twitter @PhilDJay for tweets of news on WBN.
