Text by Edward Chaykovsky, Interview by Chris Robinson

Former champion Brandon Rios is backing his Oxnard stablemate, Mikey Garcia (34-0, 28KOs), to secure a knockout victory over Olympic gold medal winner Yuriorkis Gamboa (23-0, 16KOs). Top Rank and 50 Cent are both on board with making Garcia-Gamboa happen. The fight is targeted to take place on May 17th, but it very well may get pushed back to a date in June.

In 2012, Rios was scheduled to face Gamboa. The fight fell apart after Gamboa no-showed the entire promotional tour. There was a financial dispute between Top Rank and Gamboa. A legal battle followed, with 50 Cent buying out Gamboa's contract from Top Rank. 

"Mikey will stop that little f***ing little midget. Man, f*** that little midget. That f***ing Gamboa, that motherf***er. I haven't said his f***ing name in a long time. All of a sudden he grows some balls on the internet and f***ing starts tweeting sh*t like 'I would f*** up Brandon.' That's why we've been talking sh*t on twitter, because he's been mentioning my name out of his mouth. I understand that your problem was with Top Rank, because you wanted to get paid for fighting me. That motherf***er was going to make way more than I was going to make. So at the end of the day - f*** him," Rios said.