Perhaps it’s the most brutal bout so far in the first quarter of 2012, two of them with heavy hands. And, indeed, it’s been chilly times for former featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez who took tremendous beating once again in the hands of WBO featherweight titlist Orlando Salido tonight in his own home country, Puerto Rico.
The fight itself, which would surely become a candidate for the ‘Fight of the Year’, was a dramatic see-saw battle of wills. The deciding moment came in the 10th when Salido floored Lopez with a sweeping right hook and a combination. Upon assessing Lopez who momentarily had shown with unstable gait despite his propensity not to give up, referee Roberto Ramirez, Sr. soon stopped the fight, thus ending the bout by TKO with 32 seconds consumed in the 10th.
Salido (38-11-2), a hard-hitting bull of a fighter from Mexico, made the brown bomber who has been known for his jabbing and moving in the ring bearing his trademark quick short hands, opted to go for a toe-to-toe fight. Lopez landed heavy punches inside in rounds 7, 8 and 9, leaving Salido swollen both of his peri-orbital areas. His confidence rose up, he took the risk and stopped throwing shots from distance and took up almost every uppercuts and hooks at close. In the late rounds just before the stoppage, Lopez had shown remarkable progress. But, he changed his tactics head-on.
In the early rounds up close to round 5, Salido’s persistent advances in the early rounds had shown to be effective. Even then, Lopez (31-2-0) caught him and dropped him in the last quarter of round 5 from a short right upon his left jaw. Still, that did not stop Salido from unrelentless frontal attacks until final end of the bout.
