This thrilling and grueling all-action brawl was the highlight of the evening and it plainly stole the show?
?I thought I won the fight?I thought in the first couple of rounds we were kind of even, but then I took the fight afterwards. I was definitely looking for the championship. I threw more of the punches in this fight and I definitely won the fight. I dedicated so much of this fight, for them to take it away is not fair. I?m definitely ready for a third fight.??Orlando Salido
?Salido, a former featherweight champion who owns victories over Juanma Lopez and Vasyl Lomachenko, was a whirlwind from the onset.??Mike Copplinger
As soon as I heard the words ?We have a split decision? I knew this was going to end badly. I looked over to my friend and said, ?Oh no.? Prior to the decision being announced, the only question in my mind was by what margin did Orlando ?Siri? Salido (42-13-3) beat Roman ?Rocky? Martinez (29-2-3) in what should be a contender for Fight of the Year.
Both men wailed away at each other non-stop and both men hit the canvas in round three as the fight lived up to its pre-match hype, but Siri?s volume of punches and crunching body work seemed to carry the day. Indeed, as Scott Christ of BLH said, ?The prevailing thought across social media seemed to be that Salido had won the fight due to his incredible punch-rate, as he unleashed 1,037 punches over the 12-round battle.? Salido landed more?285 to 189?and also had a 249-169 edge in power landed.
The 12th and final round belonged to Siri as he showed a will to win that was spine tingling. This was the stuff of a warrior, a winner who moved forward incessantly, but shockingly and unfairly, at least in my view, it was not to be as the judges called it a draw on scores of 115-113 Martinez, 115-113 Salido, and 114-114. I had Salido winning 116-112.
Martinez, who won the first bout, retained his WBO lightweight title in the co-feature to Mayweather- Berto on Showtime PPV, but this thrilling and grueling all-action brawl was the highlight of the evening and it plainly stole the show from the ?sparing session? that was the main event.
While a trilogy is in order, the wrong team will be dictating the terms.
