Lomachenko-Rigondeaux to run against Salido-Roman on Sat.

By Boxing News - 12/04/2017 - Comments

Image: Lomachenko-Rigondeaux to run against Salido-Roman on Sat.

By Dan Ambrose: Two competing cards this Saturday will run against each other with WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko fighting Guillermo Rigondeaux on ESPN and former 2 division world champion Orlando Salido battling Miguel ‘Mickey’ Roman on HBO. The boxing fans will have to either pick which of the two fights they want to watch or else flip channels continuously to see the two fights taking place at the same time.

Rigondeaux (17-0, 11 KOs) will be moving up a couple of weight classes from super bantamweight to challenge Lomachenko (9-1, 7 KOs) for his WBO 130 lb. title on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in New York. The televised fight card begins at 9:00 p.m. ET. It’s a great match-up between fighters that have each won 2 Olympic gold medals. Lomachenko has been well taken care of by Top Rank since he turned pro in 2013. You can argue that Lomachenko has been given opportunities that Rigondeaux hasn’t in some ways. There’s virtually no difference between the entertainment values the two fighters produce, and yet Lomachenko has had his fights televised on HBO, and now ESPN. Rigondeaux has been toiling more or less in obscurity, although he has had some of his fights televised on HBO.

The Lomachenko fight for the 37-year-old Rigondeaux is coming at a fairly advanced age for him. The Cuban fighter is considerably older than the 29-year-old Lomachenko, and he’s lighter than him as well. However, Rigondeaux hasn’t yet started showing signs of his age. His last couple of performances against Moises Flores and James Dickens suggests that Rigondeaux is still at the top of his game.

Rigondeaux is still faster than Lomachenko despite being 8 years older. It’s a product of good genetics on Rigondeaux’s part. Lomachenko will never have the hand speed and cat-like quickness that Rigondeaux now possesses. The only things Lomachenko has going for him in this match-up is size and youth, and those might not be enough for him. Rigondeaux fought bigger guys training in Cuba in the past, and he’s comfortable with dominating guys that have more size than him.

There’s going to be a weight check on the morning of the fight for Lomachenko and Rigondeaux. They’ll need to both weigh-in no more than 138 lbs. at 9:00 a.m. on the day of the fight on December 9. Lomachenko is on board with that.

Orlando Salido (44-13-4, 31 KOs) and Miguel ‘Mickey’ Roman (57-12, 44 KOs) were supposed to be fighting for interim WBC super featherweight title, but that won’t be happening. The fight will be a 10 round match. The World Boxing Council president Mauricio Sulaiman sent out a press release on Monday, saying that HBO wants it to be a 10 round fight. So, instead of Salido and Roman fighting for the interim WBC 130lb. strap, they’ll be facing each other in a 10 round bout with no title on the line.

Salido vs. Roman card will be televised on HBO starting at 10:20 p.m. ET. The card has Tevin Farmer fighting Kenichi Ogawa in super featherweight action, as well as former WBC 130lb. champion Francisco Vargas fighting Stephen Smith. Those are 3 excellent fights. It’s too bad that the card will be competing with the Lomachenko vs. Rigondeaux fight card on ESPN.

Salido, 37, figures to have too much talent for Roman. The only thing that could potentially hurt Salido’s chances of winning the fight is his inactivity. He hasn’t been fighting a lot lately. The only fight Salido had this year was against Aristides Perez on May 27. Salido stopped Perez in round 7, but it was a hard fight. Salido was hurt earlier from one of the 36-year-old Perez’s big uppercuts. It wasn’t until Salido got serious in throwing body shots that Perez quickly wilted under the pressure. Perez was good at dishing out punishment, but less equipped to take the punishing body shots from Salido. Salido fought once in 2015 in fighting to a controversial 12 round draw against former WBC World super featherweight champion Francisco Vargas on June 4. That was considered a robbery in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans. Salido appeared to win the fight fairly easily, but the judges gave Vargas a draw. I had Salido winning by 8 rounds to 4. The scoring was horrible. In Salido’s fight before that, he also robbed of a win against Roman Martinez on September 12, 2015. The judges scored a 12 round draw. That fight was even more one-sided than Salido’s controversial draw against Vargas. Martinez took a beating from Salido in that fight, and he didn’t look like the same fighter in his subsequent match against Lomachenko in June of last year. Martinez hasn’t fought since then.

In Salido’s first fight against Martinez in April of 2015 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, he lost a controversial 12 round unanimous decision. That was another fight in which Salido was given the short end of the stick by the judges. All total, Salido has had 3 fights in the last 2 years of his career that he should have won, but he didn’t due to the questionable scoring by the judges. In Salido’s fight with Mikey Garcia in 2013, he lost the match by an 8 round technical decision. Mikey was pulled out of the fight in the 8th round due to a broken nose. Mikey did have a nose injury, but so did Salido. It looked more like a case of Mikey and his trainer Robert Garcia being worried because he was exhausted at that point in the fight, and Salido was taking over the fight with his body punching. Mikey looked like he was fading fast and very worried. Salido, who is a no nonsense fighter from Mexico, was amused at how Mikey chose to get out of the fight complaining of a nose injury. Salido saw the worry on Mikey and Robert Garcia’s faces. Salido noted that the fight was no longer going the exhausted Mikey’s way, so he bailed out rather than continuing to fight and possibly getting knocked out. Mikey totally depleted by the time his trainer pulled him out. That fight likely would have resulted in Salido stopping Mikey. Instead, Mikey was given an 8th round technical decision. Was that a weak move on Mikey’s part? A lot of boxing fans saw it like that.

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