Gabriel Flores looks to dominate Joe Cordina

Stockton’s own Gabriel Flores Jr. (27-2, 8 KOs) looks to put on a show Saturday night against former IBF super featherweight champion Joe Cordina (18-1, 9 KOs) at the Ascent Health Arena in Stockton, California.

The two had several heated exchanges this week. At Thursday’s press conference, Joe said that Gabe got him out of the bag in the two fights he competed in. To tell Flores, “When you jump in with me, you’re going to know what a real fighter is.”

They went back and forth a bit with Cordina telling the story about how he met 8 or 9 people who asked him who he was fighting about, and he tells them who. When they find out it’s Gabe, he’s fighting, they say, “F**k that b**ch.” Flores responded to that exchange by saying, “I have haters, it’s part of my aura.”

The 25-year-old Flores has won six straight since suffering a tough losing streak, losing two of three against tough opponents Giovanni Cabrera and Luis Alberto Lopez. He was knocked out in both fights, but he says he is now ready to make a comeback against top-level competition, having learned from those experiences.

At today’s weigh-in, Cordina came in at the lightweight limit of 135 pounds, and Flores weighed in at just under 134.8 pounds. The two then had an intense face off, with neither fighter wanting to be the first to break away from their intense stare. Gabe said he called Joe soft on stage, to which Cordina responded by saying he would show him tomorrow.

“First thing he wants to do is talk about my aura and say that’s why he doesn’t like me. That tells me that my aura, my presence intimidated him. That’s how I feel because he doesn’t even know me,” said Flores of Cordina.

Joe steps into the lion’s den and fights the hometown fighter in his backyard. The bout is a title eliminator for Abdullah Mason’s newly won WBO lightweight title. Flores is ranked fourth by the World Boxing Organization and hopes to climb up the rankings to challenge the newly crowned champion.

This will be Cordina’s second fight at lightweight since defeating Jaret Gonzalez Quiroz for the WBO world lightweight title earlier this year. Flores wants to make a statement against the 34-year-old Cordina. When asked what we can expect from him on Saturday night? He said: “A dominant performance, I feel like I’m going to stop him. Not going for the knockout but it’s going to happen.”