By Keith Idec

Ideally, Vasyl Lomachenko would be preparing to take his shot at redemption Saturday night.

A rematch with Orlando Salido was what Lomachenko wanted more than any other fight. And if the two-time Olympic gold medalist is going to remain at 130 pounds, Lomachenko knows he must avenge the lone loss on his professional record.

His handlers tried to make that fight for Saturday night, but couldn’t come to a financial agreement with Salido’s side.

“I was a little disappointed because as far as I knew, everything was going through and everything was agreed,” Lomachenko said through a translator during a recent conference call. “And Salido agreed to fight and there was already some sort of agreement made with Top Rank. But then, all of a sudden, it flipped around and now he was not gonna fight. But that’s life.”

Lomachenko’s promoters at Top Rank Inc. will tell you Salido wanted too much money. Salido’s representatives would argue that Bob Arum’s company wasn’t offering enough from the license fee HBO Sports provided to televise Lomachenko’s next fight on the premium cable network.

As usual, the truth probably lies somewhere near the middle.

Whatever happened, once Salido turned down a Lomachenko rematch, Top Rank turned to Panama’s Jezreel Corrales, the WBA super featherweight champion. Facing Corrales at least would’ve given Lomachenko (7-1, 5 KOs) an opportunity to add another 130-pound title to his WBO championship.

Corrales ultimately turned down the fight, too.

Jason Sosa didn’t hesitate to accept a shot at one of the best boxers in the world. The Camden, New Jersey, native didn’t care if he was Top Rank’s third, fourth or fifth choice.

As long as he was paid a reasonable sum, Sosa (20-1-4, 15 KOs) would take a crack at defying the odds once again.

The huge underdog isn’t the least bit intimidated because Sosa’s unforeseen rise in the boxing business has been built on doing things the past 15 months most thought he couldn’t. He drew with heavily favored former featherweight champion Nicholas Walters, who was undefeated at the time, in his HBO debut in December 2015.

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Six months after his battle with Walters (26-1-1, 21 KOs), Sosa, down on all three scorecards, stopped another undefeated fighter, the Dominican Republic’s Javier Fortuna (31-1-1, 22 KOs, 1 NC), to win a version of the WBA’s super featherweight title in Beijing. Before he was stripped, Sosa defended that title November 12, when he defeated England’s Stephen Smith () by unanimous decision in Monte Carlo.

The humble, hardworking Sosa is a competent Plan C if ever there was one.

The scrappy Sosa still has very little chance of upsetting Lomachenko, who is a 25-1 favorite in advance of their HBO “World Championship Boxing” main event. By the time their scheduled 12-rounder ends late Saturday night, Lomachenko likely will have accomplished little more than adding a completely predictable eighth victory to his professional record at MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland.

At 29, and as a fighter Arum touts as the best boxer, pound-for-pound, in the world, Lomachenko can’t continue wasting valuable time in his physical prime. That’s why if the former featherweight champion is to stay at 130 pounds, Lomachenko must demand that his next fight is the Salido rematch that should’ve been scheduled for Saturday night.

Even if it requires sacrificing some more money from his purse, Lomachenko needs to right the wrong that took place against Salido in March 2014.

Sure, Salido was completely unprofessional for coming in 2¼ pounds overweight at the official weigh-in. And yes, Salido was a filthy fighter when he hit Lomachenko low so many times it was hard to keep track during their 12-round fight in San Antonio.

None of that changes the fact that Salido won a split decision and produced an undeniable blemish on Lomachenko’s record. But it’s a completely correctable problem, perhaps the only challenge within the 130-pound division that’s both meaningful and realistic for Lomachenko in the near future.

Unification fights are important to him, but beating Corrales (21-1, 8 KOs, 1 NC) or WBC champion Miguel Berchelt (31-1, 28 KOs) cannot do for Lomachenko’s reputation what avenging his loss to Salido would do. Besides, Berchelt is headed toward a mandatory title defense against Japan’s Takashi Miura (31-3-2, 24 KOs) in July, and the winner wouldn’t be available until late in the year.

Waiting that long to fight again, assuming Lomachenko beats Sosa, would disrupt the two-division champion’s plan to fight at least three times this year.

A unification fight against IBF super featherweight champion Gervonta Davis doesn’t seem like a legitimate option, either. Floyd Mayweather Jr., Davis’ promoter, made it abundantly clear after Davis stopped Puerto Rico’s Jose Pedraza (22-1, 12 KOs) in the seventh round to win that title January 14 in Brooklyn that the 22-year-old Davis wouldn’t fight Lomachenko anytime soon.

Baltimore’s Davis (17-0, 16 KOs) is scheduled to make his first title defense against England’s Liam Walsh (21-0, 14 KOs) on May 20 in London.

Salido, meanwhile, doesn’t have a fight scheduled. That should make it easier to revisit negotiations with the Mexican veteran’s team for a Lomachenko rematch.

It’ll help, too, that Salido doesn’t have many attractive alternatives.

When Berchelt battered and bloodied fellow Mexican Francisco Vargas on his way to an 11th-round knockout January 28 in Indio, California, it significantly diminished the value of a Salido-Vargas rematch. Their unforgettable battle 10 months ago won the Boxing Writers Association of America’s “Fight of the Year” award for 2016, but Vargas (23-1-2, 17 KOs) has endured three absolutely brutal bouts in a row and might never be the same.

Salido could wait around for the Berchelt-Miura winner, but that could cause a year-and-a-half layoff for the 36-year-old contender. Agreeing to a Lomachenko rematch would make him more money and allow Salido (43-13-4, 30 KOs, 1 NC) to return to the ring sooner.

“I would like to fight Salido,” Lomachenko said. “But it doesn’t depend on me, so we will see how it’s gonna go.”

If it doesn’t go the way Lomachenko hopes, a move to lightweight might be next for him. There could be appealing opponents at 135 pounds, but the best among them – WBC champion Mikey Garcia (36-0, 30 KOs) and WBA champion Jorge Linares (42-3, 27 KOs) – appear to be on a collision course of their own.

“If the things are gonna go like the way it’s going today – everybody’s running from not fighting me, I will be forced to go to 135,” Lomachenko said. “I hope the guys at 135 are gonna be standing up and coming to fight.”

Should Salido show a willingness to help keep Lomachenko at 130 pounds, however, their rematch is the fight Lomachenko must make happen next.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.