By Dan Ambrose: Former WBO featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez (30-1, 27 KO’s) will be trying his luck again in a fight with Mexican Orlando Salido (35-11-2, 23 KO’s) in a fight that will be taking place in the summer in August, slated for Puerto Rico, even though Salido is now the champion and not Lopez. This is a really risky fight for the 27-year-old Lopez, because he was out of his league in his loss to Salido on April 16th, and I can’t see how things will change any in a rematch.

Lopez’s promoter Bob Arum seems to be gambling that Lopez will be able to avenge his defeat and then he can somehow try and salvage a fight with Yuriorkis Gamboa. That was the bout that boxing fans had been begging Arum to make for the last two years. Instead of putting the fight together, Arum wanted to let it build up and marinate so that when he did eventually put them together, it would be a big cash out fight with all involved getting a big payday.

After Lopez went life and death with Rogers Mtagwa, Arum should have figured out that it might not be the wisest thing to let Lopez-Gamboa wait too much longer. Lopez was a fighter that clearly has a chin a problem and he wasn’t going to be able to continue to win in the future unless Arum matched him ever so softly. I suppose this was what Arum was thinking by putting Lopez in with Salido, who in his fight before that had been easily beaten by Gamboa in a lopsided 12 round decision loss.

I thought it was a crazy fight to put together because there was nothing to be gained by putting Lopez in with a tough guy like Salido who had just been beaten by Gamboa. How does Lopez get motivated for a guy that was just beaten? Besides that, how can fans be eager to see a fight that involves someone coming off a loss like Salido? Whatever the case, Salido whipped Lopez, badly hurt him and battered him at will until the fight was mercifully stopped in the 8th with a disoriented looking Lopez bleeding from the mouth and looking like he didn’t quite know what was happening.

For anyone that saw that fight, it’s clear that Lopez didn’t have the power or the chin to stand in there with the hard hitting Salido. I think more than a few fans will agree that Lopez’s chances of beating Salido in a rematch aren’t good. Lopez is decent fighter but he’s not what many people thought he was. He’s a guy that can dish it out but who can’t take it well in return and he can’t handle pressure well. Salido is good in those areas and has better stamina than Lopez. I think Arum’s risky gamble is going to backfire on him again and he’s going to wish he had forgotten all about a rematch between them.