Lopez and Salido to dish out another cracker

I love big Puerto Rican bills and this weekend live on Showtime, we see a rematch of one of last year's Fights of the Year, plus some massively talented Puerto Rican kids are in action.

Lopez and Salido are ready to go again

Starting off with the main event, which sees the #1 Featherweight Orlando Salido (37-11-2, 25 KO's) defend his WBO title against the home favourite Juan Manuel Lopez (31-1, 28 KO's) in a classic Mexico v Puerto Rico battle. Salido stunned Lopez in April last year, stopping Lopez on his feet in the 8th round, this after systematically beating him, putting him down in the 5th. Salido has been stopped five times, but many of those early defeats where when he was inexperienced, his last five defeats have all been on points, and that includes against guys like Gamboa and Juan Manuel Marquez. Since beating Lopez, he's made two successful defences, however they've been against guys with not much of a dig in Kenichi Yamaguchi (17-1-2 at time of fight) and Weng Haya (15-3 at time of fight). The Haya fight especially brings up doubts as Salido was put down in the 3rd and 4th, before coming back to win in the eighth, since then Haya has been stopped in four against a guy with a record of 14-5-1.

Salido after his stunning win in April

Lopez was one of the hottest guys in world Boxing going into that first fight, he was being tipped up for a super fight with Gamboa, but it all fell apart in Bayamon. I still rate this guy though, before the Lopez fight he had impressively stopped Steven Luevano, Bernabe Concepcion and the legend Rafael Marquez, and again this weekend he's landed home advantage. He had a return in October and beat Mike Oliver in two rounds, you can't really ask more than that, and I think it's the perfect confidence booster for him. The feeling I get about him here is that he will have learnt from his mistakes, and I really like his chances of regaining that title on Saturday night.


I really can't wait for this fight, it's going to be a great occasion and even though some rematches don't usually live up to the hype, I think this one will. My pick is Juanma, I havent been impressed with Salido in his last two fights, and I think Lopez is going to stop him late here.

Garcia and Concepcion provide the chief support

The main headline bout sees Oxnard based fighter Miguel Angel Garcia (27-0, 23 KO's) defend his WBO NABO featherweight title against Bernabe Concepcion (29-5, 15 KO's). Garcia is trained by his brother, star trainer Robert Garcia, and judged on recent displays really isn't far off world title contention. Judged on the title he holds and his spot on this bill, the winner of the main event looks his next opponent and that fight with either would be very exciting. He's knocked out some good guys already in the likes of Cornelius Lock and Matt Remillard, but this looks a tough job. Concepcion isn't in the best form, but only Juan Manuel Lopez has knocked him out and in that fight he put Lopez down in the first. In his last two fights he's not been at his best and judged on that he wont be able to compete with Garcia.


On the undercard watch out for a flyweight called Jonathan Gonzalez (8-0, 7 KO's) who impressed me massively when stopping Samuel Gutierrez in five rounds a month ago, he did a really good job on him last night and this weekend goes for the interim WBO Youth flyweight title, which is a ridiculous belt. His opponent is fellow countryman Erickson Martell (9-3-1, 7 KO's), who's just behind him in the Puerto Rican rankings and is on a five fight winning run, but only one of those fighters had ever won a fight. McWilliams Arroyo, who also is in a title fight on this bill, stopped him in five in April last year.


There's one or two other guys on the undercard to look out for, but I don't know a great deal about them, so it will be a case of having a look at those bouts and seeing where the talent is, which we should see as Puerto Rican Boxing is and always is very strong.