According to Dan Rafael of espn.com, Featherweight titlist Orlando Salido fractured a finger by accidentally slamming his hand into a car door and his November 10th defense against undefeated Miguel Angel “Mikey” Garcia has to be postponed.
“The worst part of this is that it was not even a boxing-related injury,” said Salido’s manager Sean Gibbons. “It’s just bad luck. One of his guys shut the door on his hand by accident. Just a freak accident.
“We’ve never had an injury and had to pull out of a fight before. Salido is one of the healthiest guys you’ll meet. He’s always in condition. He doesn’t ever get too far out of shape but these things happen.”
Gibbons said that Salido would be ready to fight again in early January.
“This guy was making a very high six-figure payday for this fight,” Gibbons said. “Even though he was making a good purse, he’s got too much pride and heart just to go through with it and not be 100 percent. He isn’t just fighting for the payday. He wants it to heal properly so he can train properly so he can win the fight. Some guys would jump at the payday even if they were injured, just because of the money. But Salido has a lot of pride. He doesn’t want to just fight. He wants to win.”
“HBO’s intention is to go forward with the card,” said Top Rank’s Carl Moretti. “I’m talking to them. Everybody is in mind to fight Mikey. It depends on who is available and who we can get.”
The co-feature remains intact, a junior middleweight title elimination bout between 2004 U.S. Olympian Vanes Martirosyan (32-0, 20 KOs) against Erislandy Lara (17-1-1, 11 KOs) for the right to become the mandatory challenger for titleholder Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
