Photo by Esther Lin/Showtime Sports
Roman “Rocky” Martinez (29-2-3, 17 KOs) retained his WBO Super Featherweight title title tonight in a rematch against Orlando Salido (42-13-3, 29 KOs) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, but it wasn’t in the way he expected.
Martinez, in fact, was dropped in Round 3, but it was actually a slip. Nevertheless, he was already having problems and was himself knocked down with a right hand in that same round.
The 32-year-old native of Puerto Rico had his better moments in the earlier rounds when he could keep his distance, but it was Salido who was relentless throughout the entire fight.
Salido, 34, continually kept the fight at close range, where Martinez was more susceptible to Salido’s short and often-thrown shots. Martinez spent most of his energy keeping Salido off him, instead of using it to throw punches.
#MartinezSalido2 punch stats #Boxing pic.twitter.com/W8JfhptanS
— RoundByRoundBoxing (@RBRBoxing) September 13, 2015
According to Showtime Boxing’s numbers, Martinez landed a total of 189 punches out of 691 thrown, while the native of Sonora, Mexico landed 285 out of 1037 punches thrown–an astounding number.
Nevertheless, only one judge gave the fight to Salido with a score of 115-113, while a second judge gave the same to Martinez and a third scored the fight a 114-114 draw. RBRBoxing scored the fight 116-112 for Salido.
“I definitely won the fight. They counted a knockdown that wasn’t really a knockdown,” said Martinez.
“He threw a lot of punches but most of them didn’t connect, they landed on my arms,” Martinez continued.
Salido, on the other hand, was crestfallen at the decision.
“I dedicated so much for this fight, for them to take it away from me is not fair,” said Salido.
“I did all the work and I thought I won the fight. I thought the first couple of rounds were even but then I took control of the fight afterwards. I was definitely looking for the championship. As you all saw I threw more of the punches and I thought I won the fight,” said Salido.
Despite their disagreements in the decision, both fighters stated they were willing to fight for a third time.
“Anywhere you want that third fight between us, I will take it,” said Martinez.
Do you agree with the judges’ decision? Who do you think won the fight?
