SONORA, MEXICO — Outside of a third round knockdown scare, veteran Orlando Salido dominated late replacement Aristedes Perez with methodical pressure and body-punching to score a seventh-round corner stoppage.
It didn’t take long for Salido to brush off nearly a year of inactivity. He continually trapped Perez on the ropes where the journeyman was hapless to stop the barrage of overhand rights, left hooks and body shots. The one bad moment came in the third when Salido was forced to his knees by a pinpoint right uppercut through the guard. Salido would remain in retreat for close to a minute before finishing the round strong with flurry of power shots.
Perez had enough by the end of the seventh and seemed to quit more from exhaustion than damage. Salido team reported been in negotiations with Vasyl Lomachenko for a long-awaited rematch.
Based on this performance, Salido has a tall order in repeating his win from several years ago. He was nearly KO’d in the final round of that win and enjoyed a significant weight advantage (coupled with a lenient ref who ignored his repeated low blows). Lomachenko is now much more seasoned while Salido has the wear and tear of four consecutive taxing fights since 2014 against Terdsak Kokietgym, Roman Martinez (2X) and Francisco Vargas.
Don’t be surprised if Lomachenko-Salido II looks a lot like the Klitschko-Brewster rematch.
