By Allan Fox: Former light welterweight title challenger Dmitry Salita (35-1-1, 18 KO’s) will be fighting junior middleweight Hector Camacho Jr. (54-5-1, 29 KO’s) on the undercard of the Zab Judah vs. Danny Garcia fight on February 9th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Salita, 30, fought former WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan for the title back in December 2009, but was stopped in the 1st round after getting knocked down three times by Khan. Salita was simply too slow to handle Khan’s much faster punches the fight was over very quickly after Salita hit the deck three times.

Salita has since won his last five fights, albeit against weak opposition. He’s not ranked in the top 15 at 147 yet, but if he keeps winning he’ll soon break the top 15 and who knows what will happen then.
Camacho Jr., 34, has lost two out of his last four fights. He was beaten by Luis Grajeda by a 6th round knockout in July of this year, and in 2010, David Lemieux knocked Camacho Jr. out in the 1st round.

It’s hard to believe that at one time in his career, Camacho Jr. had blazing fast hands and was hot prospect. However, things kind of fell apart for him after he fought an old Jesse James Leija in July 2001 in what was supposed to be a stepping stone fight for Camacho Jr. Leija was 35-years-old by then and not quite the same fighter he was years earlier. However, after getting off to a quick lead, Camacho Jr. began to struggle under the pressure from Leija and by the 5th you could see that Leija was likely going to break Camacho Jr. down if the fight had gone longer.

In that round, Camacho Jr. suffered a cut and he said he had problems seeing. The fight was stopped. However, some boxing fans think that Camacho Jr. got nervous from the pressure that Leija was putting on him and chose instead to use the cut to get out of the fight with his small lead. The fight was ruled a no contest unfortunately for Camacho Jr.

A year later, Camacho Jr. was beaten by Omar Weiss by a 10 round unanimous decision, giving him his first career loss. From that point on, Camacho Jr. rarely faced top tier opposition and when he did, he often struggled. He moved up from light welterweight all the way to junior middleweight, and his physique was lean like it was when he fought at 140.

Camacho Jr. might have enough left in the tank to beat Salita. He’s still got the quicker hands and he’s got good skills. Camacho Jr’s problem is he’s fighting in the wrong division, and he’s got a chin a problem right now at this weight.