Notebook: Lopez faces Kambosos but has fight with 140 champ Taylor on mind
Richard Schaefer makes move; Zurdo undercard; Quick hits
Unified lightweight world champion Teofimo Lopez is in teeth of his training camp for a mandatory defense against George Kambosos, but he spent a portion of his media day this week talking up the prospect of a move up to junior welterweight to challenge Top Rank stablemate and newly crowned undisputed champion Josh Taylor.
“I’ve been so focused on myself lately but as far as Josh Taylor or Jose Ramirez put them in front of me and I’ll beat them,” Lopez told media members at his open workout on Tuesday at City Athletic Boxing Gym in Las Vegas. “Josh Taylor did what he to do. It was a great fight and a great event. The whole thing for me is making those types of fights happen. Sixteen fights in, I never said no to any fight. It’s up to these other guys to step up. They’re already talking about moving up to 147 and I can already sense the urgency in not wanting to fight me.
“I’m undisputed at 135, Taylor is undisputed at 140. Hopefully we can make that fight happen and I can become two-time undisputed. That’s the goal.”
Taylor narrowly outpointed Ramirez 114-112 on all three scorecards this past Saturday night in Las Vegas to become the undisputed champion at 140 pounds. Lopez unified 135-pound titles with an upset decision win over Vasiliy Lomachenko in October.
Next up for Lopez is the fight with Kambosos, which will take place on June 19 (8 p.m. ET, Triller Fight Club PPV and Fite, $49.99) at loanDepot Park in Miami.
Lopez-Kambosos is on a Triller Fight Club card because Triller pulled a big surprise when it unexpectedly won the purse bid for $6.018 million, a number so big that it beat the two other bids combined — an offer of $3.506 million from Matchroom Boxing, which was bidding in conjunction with DAZN and Kambosos promoter Lou DiBella, and $2.315 million offered by Top Rank.
Although Lopez remains under contract to Top Rank, he has had a falling out with the company over the negotiations for the fight with Kambosos and is pleased to have the upcoming fight with Triller.
“It feels great to be fighting on the Triller platform, something different with different musical artists,” Lopez said. “It’s going to be the greatest show this year and I’m excited to show everybody what I’m all about. Triller is very driven and they really want to make their mark. We can talk about different things on the promotional side and they make it happen.
“With the boxing and the artists performing it’s a phenomenal collaboration. It’s great for the sport of boxing. It’s all entertainment at the end of the day. I’m not a fighter or a boxer, I’m an entertainer.”
Lopez (16-0, 12 KOs), 23, of Brooklyn, New York, said he hasn’t really paid much attention to Kambosos (19-0, 10 KOs), 27, of Australia, and is just preparing himself for a fight like he normally would.
“I don’t look at who I’m fighting,” Lopez said. “I heard the (Lee) Selby (title eliminator in October 2020) was a close fight. However, Kambosos got the win, got the job done and became my mandatory.”
Rafael and Davies video
My pal Gareth Davies from the Telegraph in the United Kingdom and I taped a video the other day in which we discussed three topics. We reviewed Josh Taylor’s big victory over Jose Ramirez this past Saturday to become the undisputed junior welterweight world champion and discussed what could be next. Then we previewed the very interesting DAZN main event on Saturday night between WBC lightweight titlist Devin Haney and former three-division titlist Jorge Linares. We finished up with a discussion about the announcement that the great Manny Pacquiao will take on unified welterweight world titlist Errol Spence Jr. and an appreciation for Pacquiao’s incredible career. Please check out the video here:
Schaefer to advise Jon Jones
UFC superstar Jon Jones announced on social media that he has hired longtime boxing promoter Richard Schaefer to serve as his adviser. Schaefer, who owns promotional company Ringstar Sports and is the former CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, confirmed the announcement to Fight Freaks Unite.
“I have retained Richard Schaefer as my advisor,” Jones wrote. “Richard has been in the combat sports space for over 20 years and has put together some of the biggest pay-per-view events over that period. The likes of (Floyd) Mayweather, (Oscar) De La Hoya, Canelo (Alvarez), (Bernard) Hopkins, (Marco Antonio) Barrera and (Juan Manuel) Marquez have headlined exciting events that Richard has promoted and produced.
“His knowledge and experience of the pay-per-view industry and combat sports are second to none. I am excited to embark on this next chapter of my career as I continue to cement my place in history as one of the greats with Richard as my advisor. I can’t wait to give my fans and the sport the fights they want to see.”
Jones, 33, the former UFC light heavyweight champion, is widely regarded as one of the best MMA fighters of all-time. But he has not fought since February 2020. Although he plans to move up to heavyweight, Jones has been at odds with UFC president Dana White over guaranteed money for a potential fight with UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou.
Schaefer is involved in a significant fight on Saturday as four-division champion Nonito Donaire, who he promotes, challenges WBC bantamweight titlist Nordine Oubaali in a Showtime main event.
Zurdo-Barrera undercard
Golden Boy on Thursday outlined the undercard for its July 9 event on DAZN at Banc of California Stadium.
In support of the main event of the light heavyweight fight between Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez and Sullivan Barrera and the Javier Fortuna-Joseph Diaz Jr. interim lightweight title bout, Japan’s Tenkai Tsunami (28-12-1, 16 KOs) will defend her junior flyweight world title against strawweight titlist Seniesa “Super Bad” Estrada (20-0, 8 KOs), of Los Angeles, and unbeaten lightweights Hector Tanajara Jr. (19-0, 5 KOs), of San Antonio, and Mexico’s William Zepeda (22-0, 20 KOs) will meet in a 10-rounder.
“I’m very excited to be fighting in Los Angeles again,” Estrada said. “Fighting at home with my family, friends and fans there is the best feeling. I can’t wait to win another world title in a second division.”
Tsunami, who will be making her fifth defense, will be making her American debut but is no stranger to the road.
“I am excited to accept the challenge of young and fast-rising Estrada,” Tsunami said. “I know Estrada is a good boxer. But I have superior experience and skills that I have gotten throughout my 16-year career. This is my first fight in the United States but I have fought in Mexico seven times, once in Chile and six times in Korea.”
Also on the card: featherweight Diego De La Hoya (22-1, 10 KOs), of Mexico, will face Puerto Rico’s Bryan Chevalier (15-1-1, 12 KOs) in a 10-rounder; Japan’s Naoka Fujioka (18-2-1, 8 KOs) will defend her flyweight world title against Mexico’s Sulem Urbina (12-1, 2 KOs); junior lightweight contender Lamont Roach Jr. (20-1-1, 8 KOs), of Washington, D.C., will face a foe to be named in a 10-rounder; Armenian junior featherweight contender Azat Hovhannisyan (19-3, 16 KOs) will face a foe to be named in a 10-rounder; and heavyweight prospect Mihai Nistor (2-0, 2 KOs), of Romania, will meet Baltimore’s Colby Madison (9-2-2, 6 KOs) in an eight-rounder.
Quick hits
When flyweight titlist Junto Nakatani (21-0, 16 KOs), 23, of Japan, and former junior flyweight titlist and mandatory challenger Angel “Tito” Acosta (22-2, 21 KOs), 30, of Puerto Rico, had their May 29 fight in Osaka, Japan, postponed because Japan declared a state of emergency to prevent the continuing spread of Covid-19 in some areas of the country, including Osaka, it seemed like the fight would simply be rescheduled. However, there have been issues doing so and now the WBO has scheduled a purse bid for June 1. It is open to all WBO-registered promoters with the minimum bid being $80,000.
Top Rank on Thursday made official what has already been widely reported, that former middleweight titlist Robert Brant (26-2, 18 KOs), 30, of Dallas, and Janibek Alimkhanuly (9-0, 5 KOs), 28, a southpaw from Kazakhstan, will meet in a 10-rounder in the co-feature of the Top Rank Boxing on ESPN+ card on June 26 (10 p.m. ET) that is headlined by the lightweight bout between former champion Vasiliy Lomachenko and Masayoshi Nakatani at the Virgin Hotels in Las Vegas. “This is a fantastic doubleheader featuring a living legend in Lomachenko and a pair of middleweights who are closing in on a world title opportunity,” Top Rank chairman Bob Arum said. “Janibek is relatively young in the pro ranks, but he has long wanted to fight the best available opposition. Rob Brant didn’t hesitate when offered this fight.”
Secondary cruiserweight titlist Ryad Merhy (29-1, 24 KOs), 28, of Belgium, will make his first defense against Kevin Lerena (26-1, 13 KOs), 29, of South Africa, on July 17 in Brussels, Belgium, promoter Alain Vanackere of 12 Rounds Promotion announced. Merhy has been idle since October 2019 while Lerena got in two fights in 2020, most recently on Dec. 19.
Top Rank announced that he 10-round featherweight bout between Adam Lopez (15-2, 6 KOs), 25, of Glendale, California, and former junior featherweight world titlist Isaac Dogboe (21-2, 15 KOs), 26, of Ghana, on June 19 will move from the ESPN+ exclusive part of the undercard into the opening bout on ESPN (10 p.m. ET) at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. It turns the network telecast into a tripleheader, which also includes unified bantamweight world champion Naoya Inoue making a mandatory defense against Michael Dasmarinas and Mikaela Mayer making the first defense of her junior lightweight world title against former two-division titlist Erica Farias.
Show and tell
When unified welterweight titlist Errol Spence Jr. squares off with living legend Manny Pacquiao on Aug. 21 in Las Vegas it will be one of the biggest fights of 2021. Spence is a big part of the reason why as a pound-for-pound elite fighter that has also become an attraction, drawing big crowds and good pay-per-view numbers for title defenses against Mike Garcia, Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia. His title run began when he traveled to Sheffield, England, to challenge Kell Brook for his world title in his hometown before a crowd of about 27,000 at Bramall Lane Football Ground. It took Spence several rounds to get into the groove, but once he did in the middle rounds he took over. He fractured Brook’s left orbital bone in the seventh round and drove him to the mat with a series of punches in the 10th round. Brook was feeling the pain of the broken bone when he took a knee in the 11th round and was counted out as Spence won the belt. That fight was on May 27, 2017 — four years ago on Thursday. Here’s the Showtime poster in my collection.
Lopez photo: Tom Hogan/Triller Fight Club
Lopez has already said he won't fight Taylor in the UK and judging by Josh Taylor's reaction to the poor refereeing and judging last Saturday I very much doubt if Josh will be keen on fighting in the US - at least for the moment.
Taylor should fight Jack Catterall, his mandatory challenger, first anyway as Jack stepped aside without any fuss so that Taylor and Ramirez could fight for the undisputed title.
Regarding Eddie Hearn, he is painting a narrative in which he is the victim and the hero at the same time, in a narrative this is illogic and at that point you should know that something in the narrative is wrong. Eddie is playing us all.