Teofimo Lopez has reportedly rejected the final offer from his promoters at Top Rank to defend his title against Subriel Matias on March 15th on ESPN PPV in Las Vegas.
According to Keith Idec, Top Rank’s offer to WBO light welterweight champion Teofimo (21-1, 13 KOs) for the bout against former IBF 140-lb belt holder Matias (21-2, 21 KOs) was above his “contract minimum”. ” Teo remains intractable, his own worst enemy, as his career sinks to the bottom.
It’s unclear what kind of money Lopez, 27, was expecting for the Matias fight, but whatever it was, Top Rank didn’t offer it. It would have been a risky one for Teo as he has not done well in the last four years. Teo sounds and looks like a complete basket case since 2021.
Brooklyn, New York native Lopez has ALWAYS struggled against pressure fighters throughout his nine-year professional career, and he might have fallen apart against the heavy-handed Matias.
Subriel’s power would have been pure 100% hell for Teofimo, and he might have mentally crumbled as he did in his 12-round loss to George Kambosos Jr. in 2021.
Lopez’s demands too high?
“Teofimo Lopez turned down the latest top-ranked offer, “well above his contract minimum,” I’m told, ahead of a deadline late last night for a WBO 140-pound title fight against Subriel Matias. Lopez and Matias were scheduled to fight in an ESPN PPV main event on March 15 in Las Vegas,” said Keith Idec. X.
Top Rank must have been upset by Lopez’s recent fight against master of ceremonies Steve Claggett (39-8-2, 22 KOs) on June 29 last year. Teofimo absorbed a lot of punishment from Claggett and ended up with a badly swollen face in the process to win a tougher than expected 12 round unanimous decision.
Top Rank Teo is believed to have fielded the Claggett opponent as a confidence booster following his controversial win over Jamaine Ortiz in his previous fight on February 8 last year.
Many boxing fans believe that the judges gave Teofimo a gift decision in that fight, and they felt that Jamaine was robbed. I watched the fight and Ortiz won 9-3, and it wasn’t even close. He dominated Lopez even more than Kambosos had.
Some believe that Teofimo’s career highlight, a close 12-round majority decision over Vasily Lomachenko in November 2020, ruined him as a fighter, leaving him a struggling fighter, unable to fight at the levels which he showed earlier. Lomachenko did something to Teo, and he’s been mediocre ever since. What did Loma do to him in that battle to turn him into what he became?
