JUAN MANUEL LOPEZ TKO7 STEVEN LUEVANO; YURIORKIS GAMBOA KO2 ROGERS MTAGWA

We no longer have Manny Pacquiao versus Floyd Mayweather Jr. to look forward to, but boxing has a way of coming up with compelling contests just when they are most needed. It’s not Pacquaio-Mayweather, but a projected featherweight title bout between Juan Manuel Lopez and Yuriorkis Gamboa is a meeting to be eagerly anticipated.

Each man did what was expected of him by winning impressively inside the distance on HBO’s Boxing After Dark on Saturday night to set the stage for an intriguing match between unbeaten Hispanic fighters.

Lopez, as analyst Max Kellerman observed, scored the more noteworthy win if you go by quality of opponent because he halted an excellent champion in Steven Luevano. However, Gamboa stole the show in terms of the raw emotion generated when he blew out Rogers Mtagwa in two violently one-sided rounds.

Back in harness after a couple of weeks off the boxing scene, I enjoyed this show even if Lopez and Gamboa were fairly predictable winners. I hadn’t expected Gamboa to smash Mtagwa aside as easily as he did, and I must admit I expected Lopez to have a longer, tougher fight with Luevano, who had been broken down by the sixth and was blown out in round seven.

Lopez, moving up from 122 pounds, as expected looked much stronger than when he struggled down the stretch against Mtagwa last October. Luevano was game and competent but outgunned and overpowered.

This all-southpaw fight wasn’t completely one-sided even though Lopez seemed to win almost every round. Luevano scored with the jab and got in some good left hands and right hooks. The problem Luevano faced, though, was that he was getting hurt in every round whereas he couldn’t hurt Lopez, although he did inflict a cut on the Puerto Rican boxer’s lower lip.

Lopez wasn’t quite as fast or as explosive as he had been when in top form at 122 pounds, but he was purposeful and powerful. He seemed to realise very early that he was much the stronger man and he kept a steady pressure on Luevano, backing up the WBO champion and banging him to the body and head.

Luevano had his moments but when the crowd “oohed” it was in reaction to Lopez’s punches. When a left hand from Lopez’s southpaw stance moved Luevano back in the first round it was a portent of what was to follow.

Although Luevano’s jabs were a bit quicker, Lopez’s were harder. Luevano was unable to control the fight on the outside, and in close he was getting bullied and beaten up. I liked the way Lopez brought up left uppercuts at close range, and Luevano was looking a beaten man as early as the third round as blood leaked from his nose. Luevano gave it a great try in the fifth, a round in which he took the fight to Lopez and attacked the body. Briefly Lopez seemed to get a bit rattled and his technique fell apart somewhat as he winged and missed. Luevano couldn’t keep it up, though, and when Lopez ratcheted up the intensity of his advance in the sixth the end was in sight.

Luevano, swollen and battered under the left eye and fading fast, seemed to buckle at the knees a bit in the sixth and he couldn’t hold off Lopez in the seventh. A big right uppercut seemed to take all the fight out of Luevano before a series of punches finished off by a right hook and then a left hand sent him down. Although Luevano gamely hauled himself up he looked as if any sort of a punch would drop him again and referee Benjy Esteves correctly waved the finish after just 44 seconds of the round.

Yet while Lopez had been masterly, Gamboa was magnificent as he blew away Mtagwa, dropping the Philadelphia-based Tanzanian in the first and twice more in the second.

It now seems amazing that Mtagwa was able to give Lopez such a desperately hard fight three months ago. Really, what Gamboa did to Mtagwa was what Lopez had been expected to accomplish last October.

Mtagwa was game, but he was made for the much faster, stronger and technically far superior Cuban Olympic gold medallist. When Mtagwa lunged he found himself being countered heavily — with Gamboa’s left hooks especially effective.

It looked as if Gamboa was hurting Mtagwa every time he hit him, and it soon became target practice for the WBA champion. Mtagwa has been stopped before but never destroyed in such devastating fashion. This was Gamboa at his absolute best, the fighter who comes out and takes care of business, not the one who sometimes is content to coast through his fights. Referee Steve Smoger gave Mtagwa every chance, but when the African boxer crumpled for the second time in round two there was no need for anyone to see any more.

Gamboa looked so good in this fight that it is tempting to consider him the world’s best at 126 pounds. Mtagwa was made to measure for him, though — slow, wide-punching, wide open and right in front of the Cuban boxer. Perhaps we should wait and see how Gamboa gets on against Lopez before getting too carried away.