By Dan Ambrose: Today’s purse bid for the Jorge Linares (40-3, 27 KOs) vs. Dejan Zlaticanin (21-0, 14 KOs) fight has reportedly been cancelled, according to the World Boxing Council. Linares’ promoters at Golden Boy and Zlaticanin’s promoters at Dibella Entertainment have reached an agreement to terms for the fight.
The information about when the Linares vs. Zlaticanin fight will take place and where will be announced shortly.
Zlaticanin, 31, is ranked #1 by the WBC, and he’s recently picked up three impressive victories over Ivan Redkach, Alex Bone and Ricky Burns in his last three fights to earn the No.1 spot in the WBC’s rankings.
Linares, 31, will be defending his WBC lightweight title for the third time after capturing the vacant belt in December 2014 in stopping Javier Prieto in the 4th round. Linares has since beaten Kevin Mitchell and Ivan Cano by knockout victories in 2015.
Zlaticanin, 31, has been a real surprise with the way that he emerged out of nowhere to defeat Burns and Redkach. Before his 12 round split decision win over Burns in June of 2014, Zlaticanin was a fringe contender and not thought to be someone that would ever be on the door step of winning a world title.
Zlaticanin was supposed to be a tune-up fight for Burns, but he surprised the boxing world by knocking him down in the first round of their contest and winning the fight. Last year, Zlaticanin defeated Redkach in a WBC lightweight title eliminator to earn a shot to fight for the title against Linares.
Roman “Rocky” Martinez insists third fight against Orlando Salido must take place in Puerto Rico on March 12
WBO super featherweight champion Roman “Rocky” Martinez (29-2-3, 17 KOs) is saying that if #2 WBO contender Orlando Salido (43-13-3, 30 KOs) wants to fight him for a third fight, then he’s going to need to agree to fight him in his home country of Puerto Rico on March 12, because that’s where the 32-year-old Martinez wants the fight to take place.
Salido, 35, wants the fight to take place in a neutral venue like the United States. If not there, then in his own home country of Mexico, as the first fight took place in Puerto Rico and the second in the U.S., where Salido was arguably robbed of a victory last September in fighting to a controversial 12 round draw.
The judges scored the fight 115-113 for Salido, 115-113 for Martinez and 114-114 even. The boxing fans overwhelmingly saw Salido as the winner of the fight.
“For me, the fight will be in Puerto Rico,” Martinez said to Fightnews.com. “I am champion. It has to be here. “I replied that you came twice to Puerto Rico and won. What is the fear? My job is to fight. I hope that it’s in Puerto Rico. I am the champion,” Martinez said.
Salido beat Juan Manuel Lopez twice in Puerto Rico in winning by knockouts in 2011 and 2012. Salido didn’t have to deal with the judges in either of those fights, as he knocked Lopez out before it could get to the judges.
You can understand why Salido wouldn’t want to fight Martinez in Puerto Rico after having already fought there once in losing a 12 round decision to Martinez in April of last year in San Juan. The last thing that Salido wants is to find himself having to go into Martinez’s home country and be in the position where he might need to score a knockout in order to ensure he gets a victory. It’s obviously a bigger negative for Salido right now, given the controversial decision in their last fight. It would be a situation where Salido would have a lot of pressure on him to really put a beating on Martinez to make sure he doesn’t get stuck with another loss or draw.
“You are afraid to leave the Island. I regarded you as a man, but you are a chicken,” Salido said on his Twitter about Martinez.
It sounds like the Martinez vs. Salido fight won’t take place unless there can be an agreement to where the fight will take place. If Martinez insists on the fight taking place in Puerto Rico, then it’s going to be interesting to see if Salido caves in and gives him his wish. If not, then the two of them will need to go their separate ways. Never the less, there’s likely more money in a Martinez-Salido 3 fight than there would be for them to fight other fighters.
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