By Dan Ambrose: The World Boxing Organization has approved a third fight between WBO World super featherweight champion Roman “Rocky” Martinez (29-2-3, 17 KOs) and 34-year-old Orlando Salido (42-13-3, 29 KOs) for early 2016, according to Dan Rafael.
The WBO approved the fight at their recent convention a week ago in Orlando, Salido. The two fighters fought to a controversial 12 round draw on September 12th this year on the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Andre Berto fight card on Showtime PPV from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Salido appeared to do more than enough to deserve the decision, but the judges’ scored the fight 115-113 for Salido, 115-113 for Martinez and 114-114 even.
It was just a really poorly scored fight, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if Salido decided he didn’t want to take a chance and get robbed again of a victory, because he clearly got the better of Martinez. It was so one-sided in the first eight rounds that you can make an argument that the fight should have been stopped.
Martinez didn’t get into the fight until the 9th round when Salido gassed out. But even with Martinez doing the better work in the championship grounds, you can’t ignore that Salido dominated the fight in the first eight rounds.
“There is no doubt in my mind that I won the second fight, but the judges didn’t see it that way,” Salido said via ESPN.com. “So I think the only right thing to do is fight a third time to determine who really is the best of the two. It seems that we are made for each other, and the fights are getting better. The first one was good, the second was better and the third will be the best.”
They need to make sure that the three judges that scored their fight last September aren’t working the fight for the rematch, because it would be a pity if they scored it a draw once again in a fight that Salido appears to win. That decision was just really bad. The card was a bad one as it was from the top to the bottom, but that fight tarnished the card even more. The crowd hated the results and booed loudly when the scores were announced.
Martinez took a lot of punishment in that fight from hard head shots. It’s going to be interesting to see if he’s able to take another beating from Salido. I think this fight should be a really easy one for Salido because Martinez is likely going to be a shell of himself when he gets back in the ring with him.
It was just too much punishment that Martinez absorbed in that fight for him to be able to come back from it and fight at the same level. But as wacky as those scores were last time, you just never know how the fight is going to be scored. That should have been an easy fight for the three judges to score, but they sure made a mess of it.
The good news is that the bad scoring led to a third fight between these two warriors because if the judges had scored it correctly, Salido would have won and then moved on to bigger and better things. But by the judges scoring it the way they did, we get to see a third fight between them.
This will be a Mexico vs. Puerto Rico fight, and it should get a lot of attention from the boxing public, as long as the fans trust that the judges will get the scores right this time.
Earlier this year in April, Roman Martinez defeated Salido by a 12 round unanimous decision in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Martinez dropped Salido in the 3rd and 5th rounds.
Salido was docked a point in the 11th for a low blow. That’s a fight that was clearly won by Martinez, but by a narrow margin of 115-110, 114-111 and 116-109. Martinez looked like he had done just enough to deserve the victory, but those scores were too wide, especially the judge that scored it 116-109.
I don’t think Salido deserved to have a point deducted in the 11th round for a low blow. That looked like the referee went overboard in taking that point. If you take away the two knockdowns and the point deduction, I think Salido would have won the fight.
“We feel that he should have gotten the win, but it did not happen that way in September,” said Sean Gibbons, who manages Salido. “I am happy that everyone is working on getting this third fight done, especially the champ and his team and that the WBO is good with it. I know we will get it done, and it’s going to be another great war.”
Hopefully this fight isn’t a controversial one. It would be nice to see the two fighters continue to face each other for a 4th and 5th fight.
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