By Dan Ambrose: Former WBO featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez (30-1, 27 KO’s) will be looking to get a rematch with Orlando Salido (35-11-2, 23 KO’s) later in the year and then moving up to super featherweight to try and capture a title at that weight. Lopez, 27, was stopped by the 30-year-old Salido in the 8th round last Saturday night in a fight at the Coliseo Ruben Rodriguez in Bayamon, Puerto Rico.

For Lopez, it was a really bad loss because it took away a future big money fight with Cuban Yuriorkis Gamboa, whom he was hoping to fight. It seemed that either Lopez or his promoter misjudged how good Salido was, because Lopez used the wrong fight strategy against the hard hitting Mexican. Instead of focusing on boxing Salido, as Juan Manuel Marquez and Gamboa had done in beating him, Lopez went out looking for a knockout.

What happened was Salido was able to take Lopez’s shots, but Lopez wasn’t able to handle Salido’s hard shots. Trying hard to take Salido out, Lopez soon faded and began to take a lot of incoming shots. After losing the first three rounds, Salido turned the fight around in the 4th when he began to find Lopez with right hands.

In the 5th, Salido put Lopez down with a left-right combination. Lopez got up but took punishment in the 6th and to a certain extent in the 7th. In the 8th, the fight was stopped with a hurt Lopez taking hits in the corner and looking like he was on the verge of being knocked out. He didn’t like the stoppage but he should be happy that the fight was halted because he was nothing more than a punching bag in the last three rounds.

The loss to Salido showed that Lopez isn’t in the same class as Marquez and Gamboa, both of which were able to calmly fight Salido and beat him in a methodical manner. Lopez would be better off moving down in weight rather than moving up another division. He’s going to meet up with someone in the same class as Salido at super featherweight and get stopped again.