Vic Saludar: WBO and WBA Minimumweight Titles
Victorio “Vic” Saludar is a Filipino boxer from Polomolok, South Cotabato. He won bronze in the light-flyweight division at the 2010 Asian Games before turning professional, where he became a world champion at minimumweight.
World titles at minimumweight
Saludar won the WBO minimumweight title with a 12-round decision over Japan’s Ryuya Yamanaka in July 2018. He defended it against Masataka Taniguchi in February 2019, then lost the belt to Wilfredo Méndez by unanimous decision that August.
In February 2021, Saludar won the secondary WBA regular minimumweight title by split decision over fellow Filipino Robert Paradero. He lost the belt in his first defense to Erick Rosa by split decision in Santo Domingo in December 2021. The WBO and WBA championships belonged to separate reigns, with different opponents bringing each to an end.
Further career results
Saludar’s amateur career also included a gold medal at the 2010 Tammer Cup in Tampere, Finland. His route through that tournament ended with a 7–3 victory over Britain’s Charlie Edwards. At the Asian Games in Guangzhou the same year, he defeated Mohd Fuad Redzuan, Zarip Jumayev and Amandeep Singh before losing to Kazakhstan’s Birzhan Zhakypov in the semifinal. Those results gave him experience against opponents from Europe and Asia before his professional title campaigns. He comes from a boxing family: Froilan Saludar became a professional boxer, while Rey Saludar competed in the amateur ranks. Vic’s own regional professional titles included the WBO Asia Pacific minimumweight belt in 2015 and the WBO Oriental championship in 2016. Both came before the world-title victory over Yamanaka in Japan. He then returned to Japan for the successful Taniguchi defense at Korakuen Hall. His later WBA victory over Paradero took place in Biñan in the Philippines, giving the two championship wins different settings as well as different sanctioning bodies.
The February 2019 defense against Taniguchi was a twelve-round unanimous-decision victory in Tokyo.
Sources
Additional sources: https://www.philboxing.com/boxer/vic-saludar?page=2§ion=mentions
- BoxRec: Vic Saludar
- WBO: Saludar’s title win and defense
- WBA: Saludar defeats Paradero
- WBA: Rosa dethrones Saludar
- Philstar: Saludar earns Asian Games bronze
