Juan Manuel Lopez vs. Jesus Marcelo Andres Cuellar this Thursday for WBA interim 126lb title

By Boxing News - 09/10/2014 - Comments

lopez444By Dan Ambrose: 31-year-old former two division world champion Juan Manuel Lopez (34-4, 31 KOs) will be facing #1 WBA Jesus Marcelo Andres Cuellar (24-1, 18 KOs) in a crucial fight for Lopez for the interim WBA World featherweight title this Thursday, September 11th at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

With Juanma Lopez having lost 2 out of his last three fights and not ranked currently in the top 15 by any of the boxing organizations, you can say that he doesn’t deserve to be fighting for the interim WBA title at featherweight unless the World Boxing Association has lowered it’s standards for the type of fighters that get shots at their interim belts.

You can understand why the #1 WBA Cuellar is fighting for the interim strap, but not the non-top 15 ranked Lopez, who has lost 3 out of his last 6 fights and is coming off of a 3rd round stoppage defeat to Francisco Vargas last July.

For Lopez, this was his 4th knockout loss in the last three years. He was twice stopped by Orlando Salido, and he was knocked out by Mikey Garcia last year in a 4th round stoppage in June of 2013. Lopez was considered to be an over-the-hill fighter by a lot of boxing fans after that fight, but he rejuvenated his career temporarily with his win over Daniel Ponce De Leon.

This is a really risky fight for Lopez to take because he looked like a punching bag in the Vargas fight, and was not competitive at all after the first round. Lopez didn’t even try to box Vargas, which is kind of strange because Lopez has good boxing skills.

It looked like Lopez’s main plan was for him to trade with Vargas in a war and hope to get lucky to score a knockout the way he did in his fight earlier this year against Daniel Ponce De Leon last March. Lopez stopped De Leon in the 2nd round after taking some really huge shots from him.

Cuellar’s only loss in his career was a 7th round stoppage to Oscar Escandon in 2011. Since that fight, Cuellar has won his last 7 fights and looked good. Last May, Cuellar defeated former WBA super bantamweight champion Rico Ramos by a 12 round unanimous decision.

The only thing we don’t know about Cuellar is how well he can hold up against a big puncher like Lopez. We saw what happened to Cuellar when he faced the hard hitting Escandon in 2011, so there’s a chance that Lopez could get to Cuellar if he’s able to go after him early. But if Lopez doesn’t get Cuellar early then we’re probably going to get Lopez get knocked out again.

It’s unknown why the WBA picked out Lopez to fight for the interim WBA featherweight title. It looks almost like some kind of honorary title shot based on Lopez’s past accomplishments and name rather than what he’s achieved recently in the ring. You’ve got to figure that the following top contenders are more deserving than Lopez: #3 WBA Daniel Ramirez, #4 WBA Simpiwe Vetyeka, #5 WBA Marvin Sonsona, 6 WBA Claudio Marrero, #7 WBA Gary Russell Jr. or #8 WBA Ronny Rios.



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