Vargas vs. Salido: Lives Up To Hype

In a fight of the year candidate, both Mexican warriors showed up before a live StubHubb audience in Los Angeles, CA and gave fans exactly what they came for: Blood. Carnage. War.

My initial impression was Orland Salido (43-14-4) would eventually defeat Francisco Vargas (23-0-2) in a close contest by late stoppage or KO. After all, Salido appeared to be the more powerful fighter and much more experienced facing world champions such as Mikey Garcia, Rocky Martinez, Juan Manuel Lopez, and Vasyl Lomachenko just to name a few.

According to Vargas however, Salido’s power was not a factor:

“I used powerful jabs and countered with ruthlessness. Takashi Miura was a much more powerful puncher, but my respects to Salido. He is a very tough fighter and has a very strong chin."

I thought the former-Olympian Mexican fighter was the superior boxer. His work to the body was really the difference maker; it took a lot of steam off the Salido fast-ball and I was also amazed how Salido had difficulty catching his his breathe between the early rounds.

Orland Salido also did some good work coming forward the entire fight. As the fight wore on his punches did appear to stagger Vargas, but at no point did Vargas really look hurt. Salido's effort was enough to score him the split-decision draw in a fight that could've gone either way. I'm sure Salido felt like he won but in reality, he was fortunate not to receive a loss.

Salido was also dangerous with the head butts which I thought deserved a stern warning earlier in the fight. He has a reputation of fighting dirty (low blows and head butts) and really did benefit from the cut. That said I do hope Vargas isn't prone to being cut easy; i recall two small gashes over his right eye after he beat Takashi Miura. Is this a pattern for Vargas or simply a byproduct of being in hellacious wars back-to-back?

Going forward these two fighters have a lot of options. HBO will be glad to pick up their fights against top guys like Vasyl Lomachenko and Nicholas Walters. Down the road I could see potential showdowns with either Leo SantaCruz or Abner Mares when they inevitably move up in weight. It would be an epic Mexican vs Mexican-American battle in StubbHubb or the Staples Center.

There are certainly a number of options for both fighters.

For now, we appreciate what Salido and Vargas gave the boxing world. The only reason this fight doesn't get FOY is either another fight absolutely amazes us a la John Molina vs Ruslan Provodnikov or Terrance Crawford vs Viktor Postol? Typically fight of the years will have knockdowns and this one did not. This fight was a flat-line of solid action from the start but there were no ups and downs or overly dramatic moments. Still, it was one hell of a fight!

Let’s hope Golden Boy gives Francisco Vargas a much needed “give me” fight to rest and allow them cuts to heal. But I look forward to seeing both Salido and Vargas in the ring again very soon, just hopefully, not against each other right away. Too much of a good thing can be bad.