By Dan Ambrose: Former WBO featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez (30-1, 27 KO’s) is opting to take an easy tune-up against 2nd tier featherweight Mike Oliver (25-2, 8 KO’s) on October 1st, according to boxing news from Dan Rafael on his social media site.

This is what you would call a safe fight for the 28-year-old Lopez, and it looks like his promoters from Top Rank aren’t taking any chances that he’ll take another pounding and get beaten again by matching him against someone with a pulse.

In his last fight, Lopez got whipped by the tough Mexican Orlando Salido by an 8th round knockout last April. Lopez has been taking it easy since suffering that beating and hopefully six months will be enough time for Lopez to be mentally and physically together to fight again.

Salido not only beat Lopez, he trounced him in a fight that left no doubt who the master was. It’s one of those fights where you can see that Lopez just wasn’t in the same class as Salido, which is why it seems to painfully stupid that Lopez wants to fight him again. If I’m Lopez’s promoter the last thing I want to do is put him back in with Salido for a second helping. That’s a good way of putting Lopez in a situation where he’s almost guaranteed another beating and another huge blow to his career. But if that’s what Lopez and Top Rank wants, so be it.

Putting Lopez in with a light hitter like Oliver is a complete waste of time. He’ll destroy this guy and probably get overconfident from the win. What Lopez needs is someone that will give him some resistance like Rogers Mtagwa. I say put him back in with Mtagwa, who Lopez went life and death with in 2009, and if Lopez can win that fight, then go ahead and put him back in with Salido. Mtagwa had Lopez staggering around the ring for the entire 12th round in their fight. Lopez was lucky wasn’t 10 seconds in the round because Mtagwa would have knocked him out.