By Dan Ambrose: At the advice of his promoter Bob Arum, former World Boxing Organization (WBO) featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez (30-1, 27 KO’s) will be training in Florida rather than his home country of Puerto Rico for his tentatively scheduled rematch with Mexican Orlando Salido(35-11-2, 23 KO’s). Lopez, 30, was beaten up and stopped in the 8th round by Salido on April 16th in a fight that took place in Lopez’s native country of Puerto Rico.

Arum thinks that Lopez was distracted while training for the fight in Peurto Rico and wants to minimize that by having Lopez train in the U.S away from anything that might get in the way of Lopez coming into the fight at tip top shape. The rematch, according to fightnews.com, could possibly be staged at the Jose Miguel Agrelot Colisseum in San Juan, Puerto Rico. However, it’s doubtful that Lopez training in the United States will make any difference in the rematch.

It wasn’t that Lopez wasn’t in shape for the Salido fight. The problem was that Salido put too much pressure on Lopez and kept nailing him with head shots. Lopez simply couldn’t get away form Salido no matter how hard he tried. Lopez has become accustomed to his over-matched opposition folding after two or three rounds of him slugging them at will. But when they finally put Lopez in with a fighter that can both take his shots and punch, like Salido, Lopez was in deep, deep trouble.

We saw hints of Lopez’s problems with taking punishment in his fight with Rogers Mtagwa in 2009, where Lopez was badly hurt in the 11th round and was literally out on his feet in the 12th when the fight ended. Had there been a 13th round, Lopez likely would have been knocked out because he was in just as bad a shape at the end of that fight as he was in the Salido bout. You can’t say Lopez was distracted and under-trained for that fight, like they’re saying he was for the Salido fight.

Lopez simply had problems with the pressure from Mtagwa and seemed to be crumbling as the fight wore on. A rematch between Lopez and Saldio will no doubt have the same outcome as the first. Salido is too strong and applies too much pressure for someone like Lopez to ever win. I think this is a bad idea for Arum to put Lopez back in with Salido. Arum would be better off cashing out on Lopez by putting him in with Yuriorkis Gamboa now rather than having Lopez fight Salido again and get knocked out once more.