By Allan Fox: Former two division world champion Juan Manuel Lopez (31-2, 28 KO’s) will be returning to the ring on February 2nd against an opponent still to be determined at the Coliseo Ruben Rodriguez, in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. This will be the first fight for the 29-year-old Lopez since he was stopped in the 10th round in his rematch against WBO featherweight champion Orlando Salido last March.
Lopez was given a suspension after that fight for making negative comments about the referee Roberto Ramirez, who stopped the fight in the 10th round after a badly hurt Lopez was knocked down. Lopez got back up was clearly too hurt to continue and the referee did the wise thing by stopping it rather than letting Salido finish Lopez off.
Lopez will be moving up in weight to the super featherweight division where he hopes to capture another world title, and you have to like his chances of doing that because he matches up really well against the current champions Roman Martinez, Juan Carlos Salgado, Takashi Uchiyama and Gamaliel Diaz. The only one out of that bunch who might give Lopez some problems is Uchiyama, because he’s a really powerful puncher and has a relentless fighting style similar to Salido.
Lopez probably should have moved up in weight a long time ago because he’s had to struggle to take weight off to fight at featherweight.
Lopez hasn’t really looked good for at least a couple of years when he beat guys like Steve Luevano, Bernabe Concepcion, and Rafael Marquez. A lot of boxing fans think Lopez is a shot fighter, but I don’t think so. I think he can still be effective against certain fighter.
If they keep away from punchers with a chin, he should be okay. He’s got enough offensive firepower to blast out most of the guys that his promoter Bob Arum would match him up against, but it would be a race. He’s got a fragile chin himself, and unless he gets to his opponent fairly early he’ll always be in danger of getting stopped.
Lopez won’t be matched up against anyone too good in his February 2nd fight, so there won’t be any real danger for this fight.
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