By Eric Thomas: According to the latest boxing news, WBO featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez (30-0, 27 KO’s) will be fighting in April next year against inexperienced super bantamweight Teon Kennedy (16-0, 7 KO’s) in what amounts to be little more than a stay busy fight for Lopez. It’s not a particularly interested fight, as the 24-year-old Kennedy has faced largely 2nd tier opposition during his short three year pro career. He’s currently at #3 by the IBF in the super bantamweight division, but that’s a weak division with few big names.

In looking at a couple of fights of Kennedy, he looks very slow, not very powerful and poor defensively. In his last fight in September, Kennedy struggled badly against Mexican Alex Becera (20-9, 9 KO’s) and took major shots in a war. Kennedy was able to stop Becerra in the 10th, but it wasn’t the kind of performance that would indicate that Kennedy belongs in the same ring with a guy like Lopez.

It’s unclear why Lopez’s promoter Bob Arum isn’t interested in matching him up against someone like Yuriorkis Gamboa. That’s the fight that boxing fans want to see, not Lopez beating up on a slow and inexperienced fighter like Kennedy. If not Gamboa, surely there has to be someone else available, preferably in the same division as Lopez and not a division below like Kennedy. A good opponent for Lopez would be someone like Elio Rojas, Danial Ponce De Leon, Johonny Gonzalez or Daud Yordan.

Lopez is coming off an 8th round stoppage of Rafael Marquez. That was a decent fight except for the fact that Marquez was old and rusty. I’d rather see Lopez back in with Rogers Mtagwa, who had Lopez out on his feet in the 12th round, than putting him in with a guy like Kennedy.