By Dan Ambrose: In looking at recent training video of former WBO featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez (31-1, 28 KO’s) one can’t help noticing in what excellent shape he’s in as he prepares for his March 10th rematch against World Boxing Organization featherweight champ Orlando Salido (37-11-2, 25 KO’s) at the Coliseo Roberto Clemente in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Lopez lost to Salido last April by an 8th round TKO when he couldn’t handle Salido’s right hand shots. Lopez has fought since then beating Mike Oliver by a 2nd round TKO last October, and he’s supposedly fixed the mistakes that he made in the Salido loss and is ready to avenge the defeat next month.

Lopez plans on using a lot more moment I the rematch to prevent Salido from beating him for a second time in Puerto Rico. Lopez is going to try and duplicate the performance by Yuriorkis Gamboa, who was able to outbox Salido by a 12 round decision in September 2010 after finding out early that he couldn’t overpower him like he’d done with other opposition.

I don’t know that Lopez can still beat Salido even if he tries to move a lot because Salido will catch up to him and land his right hand anyway. And Lopez will be vulnerable when he attempts to land his big hooks. He likes to throw hooks and he’s vulnerable to Salido’s right hands when he tries to land. Salido is going to be right there ready to attack each time Lopez goes to throw one of his big shots.

The problem Lopez has is he does okay when he’s the one throwing shots but when he starts getting hit back, he hits the deck are starts staggering. He’s fine as long as he can someone small out of the way early, but has problems if they’re able to last long enough to start landing their own big shots like the way that Rogers Mtagwa was doing when he had Lopez staggering all over the ring in the 12th round of their fight in October 2009.