Boxing News Boxing News
After a mercurial career, featherweight spoiler Omar Salido pulled off his biggest upset to date by unseating WBO ruler Juan Manuel Lopez in thrilling fashion at Coliseo Ruben Rodriguez in Bayamon, Puerto Rico.
For his foray behind enemy lines, Salido quietly slipped into the bout, content to let the big-punching southpaw champion lead the way during the deceptively calm early frames.
But Salido had been studying Lopez’s defense and by the fifth began to exploit the holes via a powerful right hand that had the champion down and badly hurt near the end of the frame.
Lopez managed to survive his immersion into the suddenly deep water and by the seventh was in a full fledged firefight, doing all he could to regain control but Salido was not going along until Lopez landed a crushing blow that seemed to herald a new direction in his favor.
However, the granite-jawed Salido managed to ride out the difficulty and began to assert his authority via a hailstorm of right hands in the eighth. The accumulated damage was wearing heavily on Lopez, to the point that the bout was called off by referee Roberto Ramirez Jr at 1:39 of the round.
After five WBO super bantam and two featherweight defenses, Lopez suffers his first loss, falling to 30-1 (27).
Salido, who lost the IBF crown on the scales before losing a title fight to Yuriorkis Gamboa seven months ago, wins the biggest fight of his career, improving to 35-11-2 (23).
There will likely be a rematch and it will be interesting to see if Salido can once again defeat the hard punching Puerto Rican icon.
On the undercard, WBO Latino super feather beltholder Luis Cruz, 18-0 (14), turned back ex-IBF feather title challenger Martin Honorio, 29-6-1 (15), via UD after ten competitive rounds.
