With Martinez-Salido III dead, how about Vargas-Salido?
A fight between former lightweight titlist Orlando Salido and titleholder Francisco Vargas could be a crowd-pleaser. Chris Farina/Top Rank
Jan 15, 2016
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Dan RafaelESPN Senior Writer
The proposed third fight between junior lightweight titlist Roman “Rocky” Martinez and former titlist Orlando Salido is dead, but that might not be a bad thing if one of the alternatives for Salido pans out -- but more on that in a minute.
Martinez and Salido waged a pair of fight of the year candidates in 2015 in classic Puerto Rico versus Mexico rivalry fights. Martinez (29-2-3, 17 KOs) won the title from Salido (43-13-3, 30 KOs) last April in Puerto Rico and they fought to a fantastic draw in September that was so good it relegated the Floyd Mayweather-Andre Berto main event rout to essentially the walk-out bout.
The camps had been talking about a third fight for March 12 on Showtime and both sides were on board, but they had major disagreements over the site, among other things.
Then, during the talks, Martinez was ordered to make his mandatory defense against Mexico’s Miguel Berchelt, who is promoted by Fernando Beltran’s Zanfer Promotions, who also happens to promote Salido.
Most (myself included) figured they’d work it out and that Berchelt would step aside to allow Martinez-Salido III to happen with a guaranteed shot at the winner. But the Martinez-Salido III talks cratered and the purse bid took place on Tuesday in New York.
Zanfer Promotions won with an offer of $251,000 while Tuto Zabala Jr.’s All-Star Boxing bid $201,500. Zanfer included three possible dates and locations -- March 12 in Merida, Mexico, April 2 in Mexico City or April 9 in Las Vegas, where it would serve as the co-feature on the Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley III HBO PPV card.
Surprisingly, PR Best Boxing Promotions, which promotes Martinez, did not bid. After the fact, PR Best protested Berchelt’s position as the mandatory challenger, claiming the WBO broke its rules because Berchelt (28-1, 25 KOs) has not faced any WBO ranked fighters at 130 pounds.
Peter Rivera, vice president of PR Best, said they are appealing the purse bid and hope the WBO will install a mandatory challenger “who meets the requirements for the world title fight." I find it odd that PR Best did not make an issue of this before the purse bid, and now that the bid is complete I doubt the WBO is about to change its ruling.
So Martinez and PR Best likely will have to make a choice -- go along with the results of the purse bid and fight Berchelt in a fight controlled by Zanfer or vacate the title.
Now back to Salido.
With the Martinez trilogy fight dead at this point, Salido manager Sean “Mr. X” Gibbons came up with an alternative that I love. When he mentioned it to me my head nearly exploded at the thought the action this fight could pack.
He’d like to line up Salido to challenge titleholder (and Mexican countryman) Francisco Vargas. Lord have mercy on the action that fight could contain!
Vargas (23-0-1, 17 KOs) has always been a crowd-pleaser and stopped Takashi Miura in November in the ninth round of the dramatic and sensational 2015 ESPN.com fight of the year on the Miguel Cotto-Canelo Alvarez HBO PPV undercard.
Salido has been in tons of great fights, such as the two Martinez fights, his incredible seven-knockdown war in 2014 with Terdsak Kokietgym (fight of the year runner-up) and two tremendous featherweight title battles he won by knockout against Juan Manuel Lopez on enemy turf in Puerto Rico.
“Orlando will be ready for March,” Gibbons said. “The fight would be a tremendous fight and the StubHub Center (in Carson, California) would be a great venue.”
Gibbons this week sent an email to Eric Gomez, vice president of Golden Boy Promotions, Vargas’ promoter, telling him of their interest in the fight with Vargas and saying that March or April would be great for them.
Gomez responded to Gibbons that he would look into it and later told ESPN.com that while Vargas would not be ready until April because of cuts he sustained against Miura, they would consider it -- although Gomez added that Vargas has other possibilities as well, including a rematch with Miura or perhaps a fight with former featherweight titlist Yuriorkis Gamboa.
Those are certainly attractive options for Vargas, but a fight with Salido? It’s a freaking no-brainer.
Salido is the epitome of a warrior who always comes to fight and Vargas appears to have the same character. A fight between them would be boxing theater at its best and surely give the fans a passion-filled candidate for the 2016 fight of the year race.