By Dan Ambrose: Former WBO featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez (30-1, 27 KO’s) has decided to take an easy tune-up fight on October 1st against 2nd tier fighter Mike Oliver (25-2, 8 KO’s) before a hoped for rematch against World Boxing Organization featherweight champion Orlando Salido early next year if possible. Lopez, 28, was trounced by Salido in an 8th round TKO in April.

Although Lopez has since made a handful of excuses for why he lost the fight, it just appears that he faced a guy with better power, a better chin and who wasn’t going to fold up shot after taking some big hits from Lopez. In other words, Salido merely stuck around long enough to hit Lopez back enough to where he folded.

Lopez has excellent power and boxing skills, but his stamina and ability to take punishment is very, very questionable as we saw in his loss to Salido and his near loss to Rogers Mtagwa. Salido will likely do the same thing in a rematch unless Lopez runs for most of the fight to try and win a questionable decision in Puerto Rico.

The good news for Lopez is that Oliver doesn’t have a great chin, doesn’t have excellent power, and isn’t someone that’s going to be able to last until the later rounds to expose Lopez’s own questionable chin and stamina. Lopez should be able to blast Oliver out in four or maybe five rounds. What he gets from the fight won’t be a whole lot. It’s apples and oranges. Salido is a lot better than Oliver, and Lopez won’t be able to get ready for what he’ll be facing in a rematch against Salido no matter how many Oliver-type fighters he takes on.