Teofimo Lopez sticks to retirement vow by vacating WBO title

Five days after becoming the junior welterweight king he relinquishes belt

A note to Fight Freaks Unite readers: I created Fight Freaks Unite in January 2021 and eight months later it also became available for paid subscriptions for additional content — and as a way to help keep this newsletter going and for readers to support independent journalism. If you haven’t upgraded to a paid subscription please consider it. If you have already, I truly appreciate it! Also, consider a gift subscription for the Fight Freak in your life.

Teofimo Lopez is apparently more serious about his retirement than anyone thought.

Lopez on Thursday announced that he has vacated the WBO junior welterweight title that he won via upset unanimous decision from lineal champion Josh Taylor on Saturday night at the sold-out Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York.

WBO president Paco Valcarcel posted to his Twitter account on Thursday afternoon that “just now Teofimo Lopez is texting me that he relinquished his junior welterweight title. We should respect his decision. If he comes back, the WBO doors will be always open for him.”

Soon thereafter, Lopez posted his own messages in response to what Valcarcel had written.

“Thank you everyone for making the greatest moments in my career a GREAT ONE! Thank you Top Rank and ESPN for creating ‘THE TAKEOVER’ into a real thing,” Lopez wrote. “I am forever grateful for all of the sanctioning bodies in Boxing for showing me I can and am more than Boxing! What a career.”

In the immediate aftermath of the victory against Taylor, Lopez said to media members at ringside that he planned to retire, although he also made mention of his feeling that he had been underpaid after making approximately $2.3 million to challenge Taylor.

Then on Monday, Lopez appeared on Max Kellerman’s ESPN show and said he was retired despite few believing he was really done at 25 and having just become a two-division lineal champion with several potential major money fights in his future against the likes of Devin Haney, Gervonta Davis, Ryan Garcia, Jose Ramirez and others.

However, actually vacating a world title belt takes his announcement to another level — even if many will still believe that at such a young age, being injury free and with millions to be made he will be back.

The announcement took Top Rank personnel by surprise as company chairman Bob Arum earlier this week had already talked to Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya about a possible title defense against Garcia later this year, a source with knowledge of the discussions told Fight Freaks Unite.

‘Thank you everyone for making the greatest moments in my career a GREAT ONE!’ — Lopez

Lopez (19-1, 13 KOs), a Brooklyn, New York, native fighting out of Las Vegas, was a 2016 Olympian representing Honduras, the birth country of his parents, before signing with Top Rank and bursting on the pro scene with power, speed, skills and swagger.

In 2018, many picked him as the prospect of the year and in 2019 he outpointed Japanese contender Masayoshi Nakatani in an IBF title eliminator. In December 2019, he challenged IBF titleholder Richard Commey and blitzed him in a second-round knockout victory.

That set the stage for a highly significant three-belt unification fight with Vasiliy Lomachenko, whom Lopez upset via unanimous decision in October 2020 inside the Covid-restricted bubble at the MGM Grand’s conference center in Las Vegas.

Lopez, trained by his father, Teofimo Lopez Sr., and managed by David McWater, won 119-109, 117-111 and 116-112 to retain his belt and take the WBO, WBA and lineal titles from Lomachenko. The enormity of the win enabled Lopez to be voted as the 2020 fighter of the year by the Boxing Writers Association of America.

But in his next fight, 13 months later, Lopez met Australian George Kambosos Jr. in a long-overdue mandatory defense that was repeatedly delayed (including a postponement after Lopez came down with Covid-19). Ultimately, Triller, which shocked everyone by winning a purse bid, could not deliver the fight.

That led to Matchroom Boxing, the second-place bidder, getting the rights to the bout and putting it on in November 2021, also at The Theater at Madison Square Garden, where Kambosos dropped Lopez in the first round, got up from a 10th-round knockdown and won a well-deserved split decision in an enormous upset.

Nine months later Lopez, who had smoothed out his issues with Top Rank, moved up to junior welterweight and stopped journeyman Pedro Campa in the seventh round. In a December title eliminator, Lopez badly struggled with Sandor Martin, getting knocked down in the second round but eking out a split decision to make him Taylor’s mandatory challenger.

After that fight, Lopez openly questioned if “I still got it.” But he showed that he did by handing Taylor his first loss to claim the 140-pound championship, even while going through a divorce from his wife and a bitter custody battle with her over their toddler son.

A note to subscribers

I sincerely appreciate your readership. If you’re reading, it means you love boxing just like I do. If you’ve been reading you also know the quality and quantity of what I produce. It’s one-stop shopping. Read the newsletters and there is no need to search multiple websites or click a multitude of links to get the latest news, opinion and detailed fight schedule. Everything you need is in one spot and delivered directly to your inbox (or via phone alert if you download for free the superb Substack app). You don’t have to hunt for the news; it comes to you.

I believe that is worth something, so while I will continue providing stories, notes and the schedule for free, I encourage you to upgrade to a paid subscription for the most content. A paid subscription is your way of keeping this reader-supported newsletter going and supporting independent journalism. I am beholden to no network, promoter, manager, sanctioning body or fighter. If you have read my work at all during the past 23 years I’ve covered professional boxing you know that I keep it real and that will not change.

To upgrade your subscription please go here:

Thank you so much for your support of Fight Freaks Unite!

Photo: Mikey Williams/Top Rank

---

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danrafael1/

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanRafael1

Follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DanRafaelBoxing