By Chris Williams: For newly crowned WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (6-1, 4 KOs) his issues he has with Orlando Salido (43-13-4, 30 KOs) are personal because he whipped him two years ago and made him look bad in their fight in 2014. The desire to avenge that loss burns inside the 28-year-old Lomachenko, causing him to want to want a second fight against the 35-year-old Salido. However, the feeling isn’t mutual for Salido, because he already beat the best Lomachenko there can ever be two years ago, and there’s no reason to go down that beaten track again.
It’s a reverse move on Salido’s part if he were to go backwards with his career and fight Lomachenko again, because Salido is now beyond that fight and doesn’t need to live in the past by fighting guys he already dominated in the past.
There’s no real upside for Salido to beat Lomacheko again because it would be old hat to give the 2-time Olympic gold medalist a second defeat. The boxing world already saw that Lomachenko couldn’t handle Salido’s body punching and was forced to spend the entire fight clinching him to try and keep from getting knocked out or punished even worst. Lomachenko was lucky the referee didn’t disqualify him for his holding he did in that fight because it was excessive.
Lomachenko stopped former WBO 130lb strap holder Roman “Rocky” Martinez by a 5th round knockout last Saturday night on HBO Boxing from Madison Square Garden in New York.
“For me and Salido it’s personal,” said Lomachenko to ESPN.com. “He did a lot of bad things in our first fight but we never said a word after that fight. But it ate at me. I want Salido next.”
Lomachenko has got to be kidding when he says Salido did “a lot of bad things in our first fight.” The only bad things Salido did was throw body shots against a guy that obviously wasn’t prepared for that kind of fighting. You have to remember that Lomachenko came from an amateur background, and the amateurs is a much different type of fighting than professional boxing. Amateur boxing is like playing tag where a fighter stays on the outside and spends the entire fight trying to hit with the white portion of the glove. Amateur boxing should be called ‘Tag and get away’ rather than boxing, because it’s nothing like the pro ranks.
Lomachenko came into the pro ranks with tons of bad habits just like other amateurs that have spent many years fighting in that type of boxing. Lomacheko still hasn’t developed a pro style. You see him hitting and running, and not sitting down on his shots. I don’t think he can handle body shots from a fighter that knows how to throw them like Salido or Francisco Vargas.
“I don’t care what Lomachenko said (after the knockout of Martinez),” Salido said to espn.com. “Me and him are not personal, at least not by me, and I have no problems fighting him again.”
It isn’t personal for Salido. He’s got the option of fighting a rematch against WBC super featherweight champion Francisco Vargas, who he fought to an exciting and highly controversial 12 round draw against earlier this month on June 4. Vargas and his management would like a rematch against Salido. They obviously know that a second fight would be highly exciting and would bring in a great deal of money. Besides Vargas, Salido could also fight a third time against Roman Martinez because the two fighters have been involved in two exciting fights already. A third fight would be highly interesting for the fans and for HBO, who would likely pounce on a third fight between these two warriors.
Salido needs to go where the money is for his next fight. If he’s just going to get $450,000 for a rematch against Lomachenko, then he needs to move on and look for better money. If Lomachenko and Top Rank wants a rematch with Salido, then they need to open up the kiddie and come up with the cash to get him back in the ring with the Ukrainian fighter. If they can’t, then it’s not really worth it for Salido to take a second fight with Lomachenko. It’s probably hard for Salido to get motivated to fight a guy he already schooled two years ago.