Martinez vs. Lomachenko: Vasyl wants Salido rematch

By Boxing News - 06/12/2016 - Comments

lomachenko8

By Chris Williams: Newly crowned WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (6-1, 4 KOs) says he wants a rematch against Orlando Salido, the only fighter to beat him in the pro ranks. It’s now up to Lomachenko’s promoters at Top Rank and to a certain extent HBO to see if he can lure the 35-year-old Salido into a second fight with him.

Lomachenko defeated WBO 130lb champion Roman “Rocky” Martinez (29-3-3, 17 KOs) by a 5th round knockout last Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in New York. The victory for Lomachenko, 28, gave him his second division world title. He’ now expected to hold onto the WBO super featherweight belt and give up his WBO featherweight title. He can’t keep both.

“I’ve already forgot about this loss,” said Lomachenko about his loss to Salido from 2014. “It made me a better fighter. I want to revenge Salido for my fans, to give them that rematch and that win over Salido,” said Lomachenko.

Salido doesn’t need the fight with Lomachenko right now because he’s got options. He can fight WBC super featherweight champion Francisco Vargas or he can face Rocky Martinez for a third fight. HBO would obviously love to televise either of those fights. It doesn’t matter that Martinez lost last night against Lomachenko. Styles make fights, and Martinez and Salido produce dynamite in the ring together.

Lomachenko and Martinez produced a fairly boring fight with Lomachenko out-boxing the Puerto Rican fighter until scoring a stoppage in the 5th.

Lomachenko wants to face and beat all of the top super featherweights in the division one by one. Instead of starting with Salido, Lomachenko might be better off fighting one of the other super featherweight champions. That might make for a more interesting fight. There’s nothing wrong with Lomachenko vs. Salido II, but we are talking about a fighter in Salido who hasn’t won a fight in two years since 2014.

Whatever Lomachenko can do against Salido in the rematch, it’s not going to change what happened two years ago when the two fighters faced each other. Lomachenko is now in his prime and Salido is 35 now. If Lomachenko beats Salido now, it’ll just look like he waited until he was an old man to get a win. Lomachenko is better off moving on and looking to fight Nicholas Walters, Jezreel Corrales, Javier Fortuna, Francisco Vargas or Jose Pedraza.

“The reason that I like Olympic boxing is that all the best fighters come together and find out who the best fighter is,” said Lomachenko. “I want to do the same in professional boxing. I want to line up all the best professional boxers at 130 pounds and see who the best fighter is.”

Lomachenko is a good fighter, but he needs to prove it against the other top fighters that are winning their fights. Salido isn’t winning right now. If Lomachenko is going to spend time trying to relive his past mistakes, then he’s wasting his career.

I don’t know if Top Rank even put together one-third of the fights that Lomachenko would need for him to clear out the super featherweight division like he wants to. It’s nice that he wants to, but there is such a thing as boxing politics that will likely stop him from fulfilling this pipe dream.