Taylor, Lopez talk up junior welterweight championship fight
Showdown will take place June 10; top prospect Zayas in co-feature
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Lineal/WBO junior welterweight champion Josh Taylor and former unified lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez will square off June 10 at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York, and they got the ball rolling on the promotion with a good-natured joint interview during ESPN’s broadcast of the Shakur Stevenson-Shuichiro Yoshino fight on Saturday night.
Taylor-Lopez will headline a Top Rank Boxing on ESPN card (10 p.m. ET) and to make the announcement Taylor traveled from Scotland to the Stevenson-Yoshino event at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
But Lopez was not there. He was attending the UFC card in Las Vegas and broke away from it for a few minutes to do the joint interview.
“You didn’t have the cojones to come here and face me,” Taylor told Lopez. “I’ve traveled halfway across the world and you aren’t man enough to come and face me and say hello.”
Lopez was quick to respond: “I don’t need to go to New Jersey. I got everyone coming over here. I’m at the UFC 287. I’m promoting our fight, don’t worry.”
“No worries, sweetheart,” Taylor responded.
Of course, Taylor could have stayed at home and also appeared via video but it was imperative for him to come to the United States before the announcement could be made.
The reason was because of his past association with now-defunct MTK Global, which was co-founded and once co-owned by Daniel Kinahan, the alleged Irish drug cartel leader, who the United States government sanctioned and placed a $5 million bounty on. As part of doing that the government also restricted entrance to the country for a long list of those once in his orbit, which is why many of the former MTK Global fighters and others associated with the company have not been able to travel to the U.S., including heavyweight champion Tyson Fury and brother Tommy Fury.
Before Top Rank would announce Taylor-Lopez it wanted to do what was termed a “test run” to make sure Taylor’s travel was allowed and his documents were in order, according to multiple sources. Once he was permitted to enter the U.S. without any issues, Top Rank was comfortable formally announcing the bout now that it has no concerns about his ability to return in June.
When he does return, Taylor will face Lopez in the Hulu Theater, which seats around 5,500 for boxing, instead of the 20,000-seat main MSG arena upstairs. Lopez’s last fight in December, in which he got knocked down in a shaky split decision win over Sandor Martin, drew an announced crowd of 8,029 and the fight with Taylor is obviously a much bigger deal.
The fighters said they hoped their bout would be in the main arena.
“I want to ask Taylor — shouldn’t this fight be in (the main arena) not the Theater,” Lopez said.
Taylor answered, “I think it should be in the big one, yeah, absolutely. I think we’ll sell out because you’re gonna talk some, I’m gonna talk some.”
The reason that the fight is not in the main arena, however, has nothing to do with Top Rank or Garden officials believing it wouldn’t sell tickets. It is because the NHL’s New York Rangers play there and they will be in the postseason. The NHL has priority on dates where its teams play and June 11 is on hold for a potential Stanley Cup Finals game.
Regardless of the venue, Taylor and Lopez had no problem going back and forth with each other.
“I’m completely 100 percent confident that this fight doesn’t go past six to eight rounds,” said Taylor, predicting a knockout win. “He didn’t look too good in his last fight, but I’m not preparing for that last performance. I’m preparing for the best version of Teofimo Lopez. But still, that won’t be enough to beat the likes of myself. He’s gonna say the same thing about my last fight, and my last fight was a pile of dog’s stuff as well.”
Taylor (19-0, 13 KOs), 32, who is a southpaw, has been idle since February 2022, when he won an extremely controversial split decision in defense of the undisputed 140-pound title against England’s Jack Catterall in Glasgow, Scotland. Taylor wanted the rematch so badly that he vacated or allowed himself to be stripped of all of his sanctioning body belts except the WBO.
The rematch was planned several times but postponed for various reasons until a Taylor foot injury pushed it back yet again and the WBO ordered his mandatory defense against Lopez (18-1, 13 KOs), 25, of a Brooklyn, New York, native fighting out of Las Vegas.
Lopez, who has won both of his fights since moving up to junior welterweight following his lightweight title loss to George Kambosos Jr., also at the Hulu Theater, in November 2021, said Taylor’s performance against Catterall is not relevant to their fight.
“It don’t matter, man” Lopez said. “To be honest, it don’t matter. Who he fought was Jack Catterall, who is southpaw. I’m orthodox. So, I’m looking forward to putting on a show like I always do. Put him in front of me and I’ll beat him.”
Said Taylor: “It’s never personal; it’s business. This is the fight game. He’s a good fighter. He’s been talking a whole lot of smack about me for the past couple of years and now you got to be careful what you wish for. Now he’s got it.
“He’s very good at what he does but I see holes in his game and I’m gonna expose him.”
Zayas-Cruz is co-feature
In the co-feature, rising Puerto Rican junior middleweight prospect Xander Zayas hopes to shine against Ronald Cruz in a 10-rounder on the eve of the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York.
Zayas (15-0, 10 KOs), 20, who fights out of Sunrise, Florida, will be fighting at MSG or the Theater for the fourth time in his last five fights. Top Rank and building officials envision him as a future headliner there, especially on the annual parade weekend.
Zayas was scheduled to fight Cruz in the April 1 co-feature to the Robeisy Ramirez-Isaac Dogboe vacant featherweight title bout but Zayas withdrew due to injury.
“I cannot wait to fight at Madison Square Garden in front of my people on the eve of the Puerto Rican Day Parade. This is a dream come true,” Zayas said. “Ronald Cruz is a tough, durable fighter, and I expect the best version of him.”
Cruz (18-2-1, 12 KOs), 31, of Los Angeles, is 0-1-1 in his past two fights but has never been stopped
“I’m beyond excited to be fighting Xander Zayas,” Cruz said. "My whole life I’ve been waiting for this opportunity to test myself against top opposition on the biggest of stages. I look forward to starting a new rivalry, El Salvador against Puerto Rico. June 10, you will have two hungry lions battling it out. I can’t wait.”
Also on the undercard in fights that will stream on ESPN+:
Henry Lebron (17-0, 10 KOs) takes on Christian Tapia (15-1, 12 KOs) in a 10-round all-Puerto Rican junior lightweight bout.
In another all-Puerto Rican bout, Omar Rosario (10-0, 3 KOs) will face Jan Carlos Rivera (8-1, 6 KOs) in an eight-rounder at junior welterweight.
Brooklyn featherweight Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington (7-0, 4 KOs), who won by knockout on the Stevenson-Yoshino undercard, will face an opponent to be named in an eight-rounder.
Polish heavyweight Damian Knyba (11-0, 7 KOs), who also won by knockout on last week’s undercard, will face a foe to be named in an eight-rounder.
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Its a good fight but its a pity its not against Caterrall who pretty much everyone with a pair of working eyes and more than a few working brain cells saw beat Taylor but got one of the worst home town decisions of the last few years.
Your well in the minority opinion, even the hometown fighter's media thought it was home cooking.