By Keith Idec
Many things went wrong when Juan Manuel Lopez lost to Orlando Salido last April 16.
But Lopez’s problems began before he even set foot in the ring. The former featherweight champion usually adds about 10 pounds from the time he weighs in the previous day until the time his fights begin.
When he fought Mexico’s Salido (37-11-2, 25 KOs, 1 NC), Lopez said he was 144 pounds in the ring, 19 more than he weighed the day before.
“I was too heavy going into the ring,” said Lopez, who was stopped in the eighth round against Salido. “It’s not that I wasn’t in condition. It’s just that I got too heavy from the weigh-in to the fight and I wasn’t able to execute the strategy and do what we planned. From the first round on I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do a lot of the things I wanted to do, a lot of the things we had talked about.”
Lopez (31-1, 28 KOs) blamed the additional weight he gained on an unidentified nutritionist, whom Lopez said took a lot of salts and sugars out of the popular Puerto Rican fighter’s diet as he was cutting weight during training camp. Lopez loaded up on salts and sugars after weighing in at 125 pounds, which he suspects led to the extra pounds prior to stepping in the ring that night in Bayamon, Puerto Rico.
The 28-year-old Lopez promised he’ll have no such problems between the weigh-in Friday and the Salido rematch Saturday night in San Juan, Puerto Rico (Showtime; 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT).
“I’m going to be in the best physical condition I can be in for this fight,” Lopez said, “and that’s going to make a lot of things turn out differently.”
Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com.
