PR Best Boxing announced today that WBO super feather champion Orlando “Siri” Salido (42-12-2, 29 KO’s) will defend the title against former title holder Roman “Rocky” Martinez (28-2-2, 17 KO’s) on April 11th in an event being called “The War”.
The bout, to be held at Coliseo Jose Miguel Agrelot in San Juan, Puerto Rico, will be Salido’s first defense of the WBO strap he won last September, knocking out Terdsak Kokietgym in the 11th round of a brutal contest that was named the Boxing Tribunes Fight of the Year for 2014. Each fighter visited the canvas three times before Kokietgym was finally put down for good.
The 34 year old blue collar slugger out of Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, Mexico, gave his career a second life in in April of 2011 when he scored an upset knockout over Juan Manuel Lopez, winning the WBO featherweight title. He would score knockouts in his first two defenses before stopping Lopez again in the rematch, leading to Lopez’s retirement. He would lose and regain the featherweight belt in 2013 before moving up in weight to face Kokietgym.
A win here would make Roman Martinez a three time WBO champion in the super featherweight division. He was unbeaten through 25 contests and the reigning WBO title holder before being edged by Ricky Burns in a Scotland bout that cost him the belt. Just two fights later he regained the vacant title with a one point split decision over Miguel Beltran Jr. and was stopped in his third defense in 2013 by Mikey Garcia, who also defeated Salido earlier the same year.
Said promoter Ivan Rivera, president of PRBBP, “We call this show as “The War” because that is what we expect, a battle that has all the ingredients for it, plus another chapter in the rivalry between Mexico and Puerto Rico in boxing “.
“The War” will be broadcast on Pay Per View in Puerto Rico, the US and Canada on all Cable TV and Satellite systems.
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