Fighter of the Week (6/5-6/11): Teofimo Lopez
On the most loaded weekend of boxing so far this year. One man, in particular, takes a major step forward in "taking back" what is his and getting back to where he belongs. The 25-year Brooklyn NY, Teofimo Lopez, turned back the clock like it was 2019-2020 and destroyed the once undisputed WBO jr welterweight champion Josy Taylor of Edinburgh, Scotland. Lopez flipped the script on his career, proved that "he's still got it" and captured the WBO Jr Welterweight strap, became a two-division world champ, got himself back in the pound-for-pound discussion, moved his record to 19-1 (13) and takes home our Fighter of the Week award for the first time since 2020 a year he also won our Fighter of the Year Award.
Taylor and Lopez both needed to bounce back from gift decisions they received in their last outings. Getting off to a quick start was going to be vital. It was the Scotsman that got off to that quick start. Taylor arguably took a 3-0 lead through the first quarter of the fight. However, after being pushed and wrestled to the mat. Lopez got up, brushed himself off, and dominated the fight from there on out. Lopez began controlling the fight with his jab that he all of a sudden rediscovered. And the native New Yorker mixed in his patented lightning-quick and violent power shots. Lead left hooks and right hands poured in and scored with accuracy. By the final quarter of the fight, the Brooklyn-born former champ was in complete control, completely in rhythm, and was completely overwhelming his Scottish opponent. As "The Takeover" rolled to a unanimous decision victory by scores of 117-111 and 115-113x2.
It wasn't long ago that "The Takeover '' was considered the future of boxing and our Fighter of the Year with his decisive victory over Vasyl Lomachenko. That was back in 2020, and there have only been two fighters of the year since (Canelo in 2021 and Bam in 2022), and he is only 25 years old he seems to have had an excellent bounce-back performance and should just be starting to be hitting his physical prime. If that's the case, it stands to reason Lopez could get back to where he was supposed to be, where he projected to be, when he solved "The Matrix''. Lopez is going to have a ton of attractive options. The most intriguing and very makeable ones are promotional free agents Devin Haney who holds all the belts at the weight class below and, Subriel Mattias, who holds the IBF belt. Other intriguing fights at the weight class are WBC champion Regis Prograis and there's a likelihood he will fight fellow Top Rank stablemate Jose Zepeda who is always game and always in the title picture.
