Orlando Salido knocks out Juan Manuel Lopez and retains featherweight title - Boxing news
In an impressive showdown, Orlando Salido, the current WBO featherweight champion, successfully retained his gold and battered Juan Manuel Lopez, the former featherweight champion, totally knocking him out in the 10th round.
The duo headlined the 10-bout pay-per-view which took place at Coliseo Roberto Clemente arena situated in San Juan, Puerto Rico. This was the second skirmish between Salido and Lopez and was dubbed as ‘the night when Lopez will avenge his previous loss to
Orlando’. But Lopez, despite his strenuous efforts, was unable to do so.
In April 2011, Juan Manuel Lopez was the one defending his world featherweight gold against the Mexican Salido. Unfortunately his hard work went in vain and he lost the title. Since then the Puerto Rican proud has been eyeballing Salido for a rematch in
order to get back his gold.
Juan’s wishes were granted and he got a shot at Orlando, again in his home town. The bout literally shocked the spectators since both men brutally battered each other leaving behind nothing. The intensity of the brawl is evident from the fact that at the
end of the bout the total punch count was 373.
Despite Juan’s extensive efforts, Orlando was able to rattle his world since he connected a total 235 fists to Juan’s body, chin, and head. Juan only threw 138 jabs but still they were enough to swell Salido’s eyes.
From the very first round both men just unleashed a barrage of fists on each other and did not halt at all. The duo had just one thing in their minds inflict maximum damage to collect a convincing win.
The bout ended in a bit controversial manner. Orlando, best known as the ‘Siri’, was flattened in the fifth round by Juan. Salido had to return the favour and he did it in the 10th round. After the passage of few seconds Orlando threw a huge jab that threw
Juanma on the ring floor.
The referee initiated his 10 count and Juan was brave enough to break it but despite that, Roberto Ramirez Senior, the bout referee, ended the brawl and awarded it to Salido.
The decision raged Juan and he uttered inappropriate words in mere frustration to Roberto. Later on, Juan apologised for calling Roberto a ‘gambler’ and ‘a man who ended his skirmish with Salido due to personal gambling interests.’
Lopez remarked, “For my part, I apologize to Roberto for comments I had made after the fight with Salido. Everyone knows how much I trained for this fight, all of the sacrifices that I made, because I wanted to give a big win to Puerto Rico and perhaps the
frustration of failing in my country (caused the comments).”
After the bout, Salido, revealed that why he opted to go for a knockout win and said, “This is how we planned this fight. We knew it was going to be a tough fight. We knew he was going to counterpunch and change punches. He's a tough fighter.”
Salido secures first seat in world rankings whereas Lopez stands third. Orlando now has 38 wins out of a total 52 and Lopez collected his career’s second defeat by knockout.
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