By Dan Ambrose: WBO featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez (30-0, 27 KO’s) will be fighting the recently beaten Orlando Salido (34-11-2, 22 KO’s) tomorrow night at the Coliseo Ruben Rodriguez, Bayamon, Puerto Rico. If Lopez wins this fight, he will move on to a rematch with 36-year-old Rafael Marquez (39-6, 35 KO’s), who Lopez already beat by an 8th round stoppage last November.

Like the Salido fight, there is really no point in Lopez fighting Marquez. He already dominated a very stiff and slow looking Marquez last year and a rematch seems rather pointless now. However, there’s money to be made in that rematch because Marquez has a lot of Mexican fans that want to see the rematch and believe, perhaps mistakenly, that the outcome will be different in a rematch. I kind of doubt it. But Lopez’s promoter Bob Arum isn’t going to turn his back on this rematch with the interest there with a certain segment of the boxing population. Boxing fans on the whole would much rather see Lopez fight Yuriorkis Gamboa, but Arum wants to let that fight build more for the interest to go up.

On Saturday night, Lopez faces Salido, a tough fighter but one that was just beaten soundly in his last fight last November in a 12 round decision loss to Gamboa. Why Arum couldn’t find another opponent for Lopez to fight rather than someone that was just totally dominated is beyond me. Perhaps Arum felt that Salido would bring in the Mexican fans for a Mexico vs. Peurto Rico match-up? This is really the only reason I can see for this fight happening because Salido was beaten pretty convincingly by Gamboa last time out.

I don’t like Lopez fighting Salido or Marquez. There has to be better fights out there for Lopez rather than this?