By Jim Dower: This Saturday night, World Boxing Association featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa (18-0, 15 KO’s) will be facing IBF featherweight champion Orlando Salido (34-10-2, 22 KO’s) in a unification bout shown on HBO at the Palms Casino Resort, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This is a somewhat interesting bout but not the fight that boxing fans really want to see Gamboa in. He should take care of the 29-year-old Salido without too many problems unless Gamboa gets reckless and gets caught by one of Salido’s big shots.

However, the fight that fans want to see Gamboa is against either WBO super featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez or WBA super bantamweight champion Celestino Caballero.

The chances of that happening anytime soon are pretty much zero because his promoter doesn’t seem interested in risking him against those guys, so we’ll have to be content with watching Gamboa tear up the less known fighters.

Salido has wins over Cristobal Cruz, Hector Julio Avila and Rogers Mtagwa. Salido beat Robert Guerrero by a 12 round decision in November 2006. However, after the fight Salido tested positive for steroids and the results of the fight were changed to a no contest.

Salido was beaten by Juan Manuel Marquez in a 12 round unanimous decision loss in September 2004. Salido gave Marquez some problems but in the end didn’t have the talent to get the win.

Gamboa should be much too fast and powerful for Salido. I can see this fight getting stopped quickly. Salido has a great chin and good skills and he is a small bump up in completion for Gamboa, but he’s not nearly in the same level in terms of skills as the former 2004 Olympic Gold Medalist for Cuba.

When Gamboa opens up with his power shots, he should be able to get Salido out of there in a flurry of shots. It would be nice if this fight would lead to bigger ones for Gamboa, but it likely won’t.

The best I can see is Gamboa might get matched against WBA featherweight champion Chris John, because he has no power and isn’t the same kind of threat that Caballero and Lopez would be for Gamboa.

Other than those guys, there’s Daniel Ponce De Leon, Antonio Escalante and Johnny Gonzalez. That’s about it at the featherweight level. If Gamboa’s promoter was interested in having him move up in weight, he could always take on the new WBO super featherweight champion Ricky Burns in the future. That would be a great fight.