LAS VEGAS — Omar Salcido suddenly has a much bigger opportunity than he'd anticipated Saturday night.

The Ring has confirmed that the Mexican lightweight replaced Angel Fierro, who withdrew from his matchup with Isaac Cruz, on Friday morning. The Ring’s Mike Coppinger reported earlier Friday that Fierro was taken to a Las Vegas hospital for observation because he experienced unspecified physical issues while trying to squeeze down to the contracted weight of 140 pounds for his highly anticipated second junior welterweight fight against Cruz on at MGM Grand Garden Arena.

“I want to start off by apologizing to all the fans that made the trip to Vegas, to Pitbull and his team and everyone involved in the fight,” Fierro’s trainer, Robert Garcia, wrote on X. “I made the decision this morning to not allow my fighter Angel Fierro to cut any more weight and instructed our team to take him to the hospital. I have a responsibility to not only prepare my fighter to fight, but also to keep him safe. The last few pounds were going to be too dangerous for him to cut and I made the decision to pull him out. Again, we apologize to everyone involved.”

Salcido (20-2, 14 KOs), of Lakeside, California, was scheduled to box Brian Gallegos (8-1, 6 KOs), of North Las Vegas, in a non-televised, non-streamed fight earlier on the Manny Pacquiao-Mario Barrios undercard. The Hermosillo, Mexico, native’s willingness to embrace a much more difficult fight on extremely short notice at least will allow Cruz to compete on the pay-per-view portion of this card after enduring a grueling training camp.

Salcido and Gallegos were scheduled for eight rounds His fight with Cruz, a hard-hitting former WBA 140-pound champion, is 10.

The second bout between Mexico City’s Cruz (27-3-1, 18 KOs) and Tijuana’s Fierro (23-3-2, 18 KOs) was scheduled for 12. Cruz won their 10-round “Fight of the Year” frontrunner by unanimous decision Feb. 1 on the David Benavidez-David Morrell Jr. undercard in Las Vegas.

In his last outing Jan. 25 in Las Vegas, Salcido dropped a unanimous decision over 10 rounds to Cuban lightweight contender Andy Cruz (6-0, 3 KOs).

Salcido, 25, has not been knocked out in his seven-year career. He scored his best win when he stopped former WBA interim 130-pound champ Chris Colbert (17-3, 6 KOs) in the ninth round on Oct. 16 in Plant City, Florida.