Salinas knocks out Vargas

CAMPBELL

Alejandro “Popo” Salinas gave his hometown crowd what they wanted Friday night.

The crowd at the St. Lucy’s Palermo Banquet Center yelled out chants of “Po-po! Po-po!” after he beat Jairo Fernandez Vargas by technical knockout.

For Salinas, a Youngstown native, the chants weren’t only because of the locale, but his nationality.

“It was a Puerto Rico versus Mexico thing. You could see the pride,” Salinas said. “We had some of that rivalry out here.”

Salinas (8-1, 8 KOs) earned the TKO against Vargas, the Mexican challenger from Richmond, Va., in the seventh.