By Dan Ambrose: Bob Arum says it’ll be up to IBF/WBA/WBC/WBO lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez and Vasily Lomachenko if the two want to fight a rematch in 2021.
Arum states that he won’t push either of the two fighters to fight again, as it’s up to them if they want to mix it up again. If they don’t fight again, Arum has a couple of fighters in mind that he wants to match Teofimo up against his next title defense.
Lomachenko (14-2, 10 KOs) suffered a surprising 12 round unanimous decision defeat last Saturday night to the young upstart Teofimo (16-0, 12 KOs) last Saturday night MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Loma looked like another person out there for the first six rounds, not throwing punches, and backing away from Teofimo. On Monday, it was revealed that Lomachenko, 32, had surgery on his right shoulder for an injury that he sustained during training camp fr the fight.
“When he rests up, we’ll see if he [Lomchenko] wants to stay at 135 or go back down to 130,” said Arum to IFL TV on Lomachenko. That’s up to both fighters,” Arum said on whether there will be a rematch between Lomachenko and Lopez.
“I’ll have to go to Lopez’s people. They’ll each tell us what they want to do, and then I’ll try to effectuate it. So I have no idea if there will be a rematch, but that’s good because I’m against these rematch clauses,” said Arum.
Lomachenko will need time to recover from his shoulder surgery, and he’s not likely to return to the ring until the first quarter of 2021. In the meantime, Lopez will stay busy and face one of the other top fighters at lightweight.
It’s better for Top Rank if Lomachenko and Teofimo don’t fight again because either way, they lose out if one of them gets beaten. Lomachenko can’t afford to take another loss to Teofimo without hurting his career in a major way.
The excuse that Lomachenko has now with him fighting with an injured right shoulder is helping him with boxing fans. But he can’t keep using injury excuses each time he gets beaten by Lopez.
Arum realizes the star potential that Teofimo Lopez has going for him, and he needs to match him against the right people. The way that Teofimo dominated Lomachenko during long stretches of time during their fight would make a rematch less appealing. The fans already witnessed that Lopez is a better fighter than Lomachenko, and there’s no point in seeing them fight again.