Gabriel Flores Can’t Afford A Soft Night Against 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 have had several heated verbal exchanges this week. At Thursday’s Press Conference, Joe said that Gabe got the sh*t beat out of him in the two fights he stepped up in. Telling Flores, “When you step in with me, you’re going to know what a real fighter is.”

They went back and forth for a bit with Cordina telling the story about how he met 8 or 9 people asking him about who he’s fighting, 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 got haters, it’s cuz of my aura.”

The 25-year-old Flores has won six consecutive matches since suffering a tough stretch of losses, where he lost two of three matches against tough opponents, Giovanni Cabrera and Luis Alberto Lopez. He was outpointed in both fights, but he says he’s now ready to make a return 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 just under at 134.8 pounds. The two had an intense face-off afterwards, where neither fighter wanted to be the first to break away from their intense stare. Gabe said he called Joe soft on stage, for which Cordina responded by saying he would show him tomorrow.

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

Joe is walking into the lion’s den, fighting the hometown fighter in his backyard. The match 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 ranks to challenge the newly crowned champion.

This will be Cordina’s second fight at lightweight since defeating Jaret Gonzalez Quiroz earlier this year for the WBO global lightweight title. Flores looks 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.”