Last night in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, WBO featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez saw his undefeated record shattered as unheralded yet resilient Orlando Salido scored an improbable 8th round TKO to once again become a world champion. It was an unassuming fight for the early rounds yet Salido’s dogged pressure would end up paying huge dividends and by night’s end the featherweight division had been completely shaken up.
We last saw Salido inside of the Palms Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, as he surrendered his IBF crown to WBA champion Yuriorkis Gamboa in a twelve round brawl. But even in that defeat, Salido found a way to hang tough and even drop Gamboa late, perhaps a precursor to the danger he presented to Lopez.
<--- Slideshow: Juan Manuel Lopez upset in Puerto Rico in a shocker
Gamboa, the undefeated marvel from Cuba, was to be the ‘final destination’, so to speak, for Lopez, as the two fighters had been linked to one another for the past few years. It was thought that they would be meeting sometime in 2012 in either New York or Las Vegas in one of the sport’s biggest super fights but for now those plans will have to be put on hold.
It’s not uncommon for great champions to lose, even by knockout. Lopez’s countrymen Felix Trinidad and Miguel Cotto have both also lost by way of debilitating TKO and it is simply a part of the rigors that prizefighters often go through.
Lopez’s case is a little bit different, however, as it appeared that he was far from dead when referee Roberto Ramirez Jr. waived the fight off. He has much reason to be upset about the stoppage yet he can’t deny that he was a little off on this night.
At 27 years of age, Lopez is still a young man and his future still looks bright. A Gamboa fight but not come about exactly the way we expect but once Lopez goes back to the drawing board he should be able to get a realistic sense of what his next move is.
