Crawford defeats Gamboa by 9th round TKO

Terence Crawford kept his unbeaten record in tact, and made the first defense of his WBO lightweight belt in sensational fashion in front of 10,000 home crowd fans in Omaha, NE as he defeated the highly regarded Yuriorkis Gamboa by 9th round TKO. Crawford improved to 24-0 with 17 KO’s with the victory. Gamboa fell to 23-1, 16 KO’s, suffering the first loss of his career.

Gamboa came out looking sharp for the first four rounds of the fight as appeared to have a speed advantage over Crawford. Gamboa was able to land hard shots to the body, and follow up with the right hand to fluster Crawford. He was in complete control of the fight as HBO had him winning 40-36 on the scorecards going into the fifth.

Crawford switched over to the southpaw stance in the third round as he attempted to figure out how to get the better of Gamboa as the fight progressed. In the fifth round is when Crawford turned the tables, and from the southpaw stance, dropped Gamboa with a huge right hand. Gamboa was hurt badly but managed to survive the round. From there, Crawford was able to control the fight in an action packed fight that left both men swinging for the fences. Both fighter’s landed hard blows throughout the fight but it was Crawford’s that hurt Gamboa more. Crawford dropped Gamboa again in the eight, and twice in the ninth, where the referee finally wouldn’t let Gamboa to continue.

In the Co-Main event, in another battle of undefeated fighters, Matt Korobov (24-0, 14 KO’s) defeated Jose Uzcategui (22-1, 18 KO’s) by unanimous decision. Scores were 97-91, 97-91, and 96-92,