Antonio Orozco and KeAndre Gibson look to take next step with a win
The two undefeated junior welterweights face off tomorrow night on ESPN.
Unbeaten junior welterweights Antonio Orozco (25-0, 16 KOs) and KeAndre Gibson (16-0-1, 7 KOs) are set to headline tomorrow’s Golden Boy Boxing on ESPN card live from The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. And with both fighters knocking on the door of a title fight, the stakes are pretty high.
Orozco, 29, is most recently coming off a decision win over Abner Lopez last June, but was a late scratch from a December fight with Fidel Maldonado Jr. after he was hospitalized for dehydration while trying to make weight.
That cancellation would end up costing Orozco his mandatory challenger position to Terence Crawford and represented just another obstacle that mirrors both boxing and life, something Orozco loves about the sport, telling ESPN:
"It's your own personal skills against somebody else's, and outside of that, it's just the discipline that boxing brings. For me, it's wonderful. It's like life -- you go through ups and downs, and you just have to push forward."
Orozco has since added a sports nutritionist to his team and says he’s feeling much better going into this fight.
His opponent, Gibson, grew up in a boxing household and while he may not have the professional experience of Orozco at this point, the 27-year-old does have a three inch height advantage and plans to use his own strengths inside the ring.
"My athleticism, my height and my reach, I feel like those will work in my advantage," Gibson said. "At the end of the day I gotta do me in the fight. From what I've seen from Orozco, he can box at times, but pretty much to fight he likes to brawl. And I just can't get caught up in that."
The fight goes down tomorrow and yours truly will be on the round-by-round call for Bad Left Hook. Join us for the live thread!