NEW YORK (AP) -Juan Manuel Lopez and Yuriorkis Gamboa stepped into the ring Saturday night with one eye on their opponent and one eye on each other, knowing full well that promoter Top Rank wants to eventually pit them against each other.
Gamboa quickly took care of business. Lopez nearly spoiled the plan.
After building a big early lead, the WBO super bantamweight champion had to desperately hang on over the final three rounds to earn a hard-fought unanimous decision against rugged Rogers Mtagwa in the theater at Madison Square Garden.
Gamboa had no such trouble, keeping his WBA featherweight belt with an efficient fourth-round stoppage of Whyber Garcia earlier in the night.
``A lot of people think I'm Superman,'' a bruised and battered Lopez said afterward. ``I get hurt just like everybody else.''
Top Rank wants Lopez to fight once more at 122 pounds before moving up to challenge Gamboa, the 126-pound Cuban knockout artist who has been making quick work of just about everybody. It's an intriguing idea, assuming Lopez can navigate another title defense.
``I think it's a really good, competitive fight, but (Lopez) has got to fight a smarter fight against Gamboa than he fought tonight,'' Top Rank boss Bob Arum said. ``He let himself become vulnerable and that's not smart. He showed a lot of heart though.''
Lopez (27-0, 24 KOs) entered the ring to the pulsating chants of a heavily Puerto Rican crowd, the same one that regularly turns out to support countryman Miguel Cotto, and which made Lopez's idol Felix Trinidad feel so at home in the Garden over the years.
Lopez needed every bit of support he could muster.
The slippery southpaw, who had stopped his last 14 opponents, bounced around the ring and landed thudding right hands early in the fight. But he never could deliver the knockout blow, only once dropping the Tanzania-born challenger, and the tide gradually turned.
Lopez found himself laying against the ropes when the bell rang for the end of the 11th.
``He was definitely hurting me, but I never felt I was going down. I felt my feet under me the whole time,'' Lopez said. ``He caught me with some good punches.''
The 24-year-old champion returned to his stool and dropped his head, his legs shot and his eyes glazed. He then spent the final 3 minutes desperately hanging on.
``The 11th round he really hurt me,'' Lopez said, ``and I was never able to recuperate.''
Judge Carlos Ortiz scored it 116-111, Steve Weisfeld had it 115-111 and Kevin Morgan 114-113, all for Lopez. The Associated Press also scored it 115-111.
``I feel like I won the fight,'' said Mtagwa, who dropped to 25-13-2. ``The last round he was tired, really tired.''
Gamboa (16-0, 14 KOs) never had a chance to get tired, hurting Garcia with a flurry in the first round and opening a small cut under his right eye in the second. After spending another round getting his timing down, Gamboa floored Garcia (22-7) with a combination in the fourth.
The Panamanian pulled himself off the canvas, but he couldn't defend against the speed of Gamboa, who earned his seventh straight knockout.
``At the end of the second round, I knew I was going to knock him out,'' said Gamboa, who landed 71 punches to just 13 for Garcia. ``I just didn't have enough time to end it.''
Gamboa defected from Cuba in December 2006, along with teammates Odlanier Solis and Yan Barthelemy, and signed with Germany-based Arena Box Promotions. While he openly acknowledges that he misses his homeland, he doesn't miss the crushing poverty that forced him to sell his Olympic gold medal just to pay for his young daughter's birthday party.
With an impressive performance against the overmatched Garcia, who lost his second world title fight, Gamboa could be lining himself up for the kind of payday he once only imagined.
``Winning by knockout at the Garden,'' he said, ``there's nothing like it.''
On the undercard, Gamboa's amateur teammate Solis looked good in stopping former world title contender Monte Barrett with 1:54 left in the second round.
Solis (15-0, 11 KOs), who weighed a rotund 271 pounds, knocked Barrett down with a ferocious left early in the second round, then trapped him against the ropes and showed the attacking instinct that earned him three world amateur titles and a gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Barrett (35-8) accepted the fight on Wednesday, after Kevin Johnson pulled out for a shot at WBC titleholder Vitali Klitschko and Fres Oquendo backed out because of legal trouble. Barrett looked unprepared, too, unable to land anything substantial.
``When I came into this career, I knew I could take on some of the top 10 guys, and I'm ready for that,'' Solis said. ``I showed that tonight.''
