Salud, Medina on High After Low Evening : Boxing: Both fighters win championships when opponents are disqualified for illegal blows.

What are the chances of two championship bouts being decided by low blows the same night?

It happened on a wild and crazy Monday at the Forum.

Challenger Jesus Salud was awarded the World Boxing Assn. junior-featherweight title when referee Larry Rozadilla disqualified Juan Jose Estrada in the ninth round.

Less than an hour earlier, the 6,166 fans saw Manuel Medina win the heretofore vacant WBA Intercontinental junior-lightweight title over Edgar Castro in the seventh round.

The main event was called after a left to the groin felled Salud.

Estrada had points deducted in both the sixth and seventh rounds for low blows and landed a few more in the eighth that went undetected.

“Salud was hurt badly,” said Rozadilla. “He had said he wouldn’t go on after a couple of the other low punches. I told him he would lose if he didn’t. But this time I knew he couldn’t continue.”

Actually, the fight was decided near the bell ending the second round when Estrada, the 122-pound champion from Tijuana, was rocked by a left hook.

Estrada wobbled to his corner and never recovered fully. He was well behind on all scorecards after being knocked down by a left-right combination in the sixth.

Estrada won only at the pay window, collecting $50,000 to $15,000 for Salud, who began his career in Honolulu and now lives in San Diego.

Referee Burton Gilliam disqualified Castro when he tagged Medina with his fourth illegal punch.

Medina, 18, who didn’t begin his pro career in Tijuana until he was 13, had been floored by hooks below the belt in the second and third rounds.

He also was felled by a left in the third, but he was quicker and more active than Castro and was ahead on two cards and even on the other.

In other bouts, super-middleweight Vincent Durham won a five-round decision over Fred Thomas and lightweight Jaime Castillo won a four-round decision over Eddie Alvarado.