Orlando Salido vs. Mikey Garcia postponed due to Salido injury

By Boxing News - 09/28/2012 - Comments

Image: Orlando Salido vs. Mikey Garcia postponed due to Salido injuryBy Dan Ambrose: The November 10th title defense by WBO featherweight champion Orlando Salido (39-11-2, 27 KO’s) against his #1 WBO Miguel Angel “Mikey” Garcia (29-0, 25 KO’s) has been postponed due to the 31-year-old Salido injuring his right index finger after accidentally slamming a car door on the finger, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. The Salido-Garcia was supposed to have taken place at the Wynn Resort, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Salido is expected to be ready to take the Garcia fight in January sometime.

For conspiracy theorists, this is the first time that Salido has ever pulled out of fight due to an injury.

Salido’s manager Sean Gibbons said to ESPN “The worst part of this is that it was not even a boxing-related injury. It’s just bad luck…Just a freak accident.”

Mikey Garcia’s promoter at Top Rank are actively looking for a replacement opponent for Salido to face Garcia. They’d like to salvage the card, which has Top Rank fighter unbeaten junior middleweight contender Vanes Martirosyan facing Erislandy Lara in a WBC junior middleweight eliminator bout with the winner to become the mandatory challenger for WBC champ Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Also on the undercard is super bantamweight Jesse Magdaleno facing an opponent still to be determined and super middleweight Jesse Hart also facing a yet to be determined opponent.

It’s going to be interesting to see who, if anyone, Top Rank can find for Garcia because this guy has been matched up with pretty much nothing weak opposition his entire career his high knockout record would likely be easily duplicated by Salido if he faced the same guys for his first 27 fight. I could see Salido having a 27-0 record with 27 knockouts if he faced the weak opponents the 24-year-old Garcia has faced. It’s hard to understand why Top Rank has never stepped Garcia up all this time. It’s nice that they’re doing it now by putting him in with Salido, but can’t be good that he’s going from facing 2nd and 3rd opposition straight into a fight against Salido. This would seem like the textbook way not to bring up a fighter. Garcia should have been slowly put in with better and better opposition with each fight. Instead, his opposition has never gone past the B level and poor B level at that. I can’t help but to see Garcia as someone that is going to be in way over his head when the fight eventually happens in January. He’s not prepared. He’s totally robotic, don’t throw combinations, barely throws jabs and just stands around and admires his work every time he throws shots. He’s not much more of a puncher than Salido, and he’s going to be in deep, deep trouble when he steps in the ring with Salido.

I’m hoping that Top Rank find a live body this time for Garcia, but given the past you have to figure it’s probably going to be some poor sap with no chance of winning just hauled in to make Garcia look good. Garcia will likely knock the guy out in the 1st round and boxing fans will get excited for nothing because they won’t realize how much of a mismatch it was.



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