By Dan Ambrose: With his 2nd round knockout victory over the B level fighter Mike Oliver (25-3, 8 KO’s) last Saturday night, former WBO featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez (31-1, 28 KO’s) now reportedly feels that he’s ready to fight a rematch against Orlando Salido, who destroyed Lopez easily in an 8th round TKO win last April. If not Salido, then Lopez feels he’s ready to fight Yuriorkis Gamboa or Jhonny Gonzalez.

I think Lopez would lose to all three of those guys without a doubt. I hope Lopez’s promoter Bob Arum sits down with him with a big cup of coffee and gives Lopez the straight talk about his chances against each of these fighters, because I saw nothing in Lopez’s sloppy performance against Oliver that suggests that Lopez is ready to fight Salido again or to take on hard punchers like Gonzalez and Gamboa. While I think Gonzalez is terribly flawed and beatable, I just don’t know that Lopez has got the chin or the stamina to do it. You’ve to to last at least six rounds with Gonzalez before you can take him out, and I doubt Lopez would make it that far with his fragile chin.

I think Salido would knock Lopez out once again, and Gamboa would make quick work of Lopez in a couple of rounds at best, and Gonzalez would wear Lopez down and drown him in the later rounds.

Lopez’s promoter Bob Arum needs to be thinking smart and trying to get as much mileage as he can out of his fighter if he wants him to last long enough for a possible cash out fight against Gamboa. Putting Lopez in with Salido and Gonzalez would wreck a Gamboa-Lopez fight for the future, and it’s really too soon for Lopez to be fighting Gamboa because Lopez’s loss to Salido is still too fresh in the minds of boxing fans. Lopez needs at least nine or ten good fights before boxing fans will have forgotten the image of him getting pummeled by Salido.

Lopez looks to have gone down hill since his win over Daniel Ponce De Leon in 2008. He was a good fighter then, but he hasn’t looked the same since. Not sure what happened to him but he’s been hurt in fights against Rogers Mtagwa, Rafael Marquez, Bernabe Concepcion and Salido, and not shined.