By Dan Ambrose: Former two division world champion Orlando Salido (43-13-3, 30 KOs) will be back inside the ring on June 4 to challenge WBC World super featherweight champion Francisco Vargas (23-0-1, 17 KOs) for his title at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
Salido, 35, fought to a 12 round draw against WBO World super featherweight champion Roman “Rocky” Martin last September at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Salido fought well enough to deserve the decision, but instead the three judges scored the fight a draw, which meant that Martinez got to keep his WBO title.
There were plans for Martinez to fight Salido in a third fight. However, the World Boxing Organization ordered Martinez to defend his title against #1 WBO Miguel Berchet next rather than face Salido again. Martinez is defending his title against Berchelt on March 12.
“If he [Martinez] wants to see a real fight between real warriors, I invite him to go the Stubhub Center in Carson, California on June 4 and enjoy a fight between a real champion Francisco Vargas and myself and he will see what a fight of the year looks and sounds like,” said Salido via Fightnews.com.
This is a really tough fight for Salido, as the 31-year-old Vargas is coming off an impressive 9th round knockout win over Takashi Miura last November in a fight in which both fighters hit the deck in a fight televised on HBO pay-per-view on the undercard of the Miguel Cotto vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fight card.
“If I was Rocky Martinez I would be thinking only about his fight against Miguel Berchelt and stop making plans to fight Vargas who already has a partner for June 4,” Salido said.
Salido has fought Martinez in back to back fights, losing to him by a 12 round unanimous decision in their first fight in April 2015 in San Juan Puerto, Rico, and then fighting him to a controversial draw last September.
Martinez is expected to deal with Berchelt (28-1, 25 KOs) without too many problems on March 12. Berchelt has a lot of knockouts on his resume, but he’s won those fights against weak opposition. In 2014, Berchelt was stopped in the 1st round by Luis Eduardo Flores. If Martinez can win that fight, then he’ll likely face the winner of the Salido vs. Vargas fight later on this year. It should be an interesting fight as long as the judges don’t mess up on the scoring and create another controversial outcome.
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