By Dan Ambrose: Bob Arum plans a card in early 2021 headlined by Teofimo Lopez vs. George Kambosos Jr with Joshua Franco vs. Andrew Moloney III in Australia. Steve Kim is reporting the news of this card being worked on by Top Rank promoter Arum.
IBF/WBA/WBC/WBO lightweight champion Lopez (16-0, 12 KOs) would be taking care of his new IBF mandatory George Kambosos Jr (19-0, 10 KOs) in what would a stay busy fight.
Although the 27-year-old Australian Kambosos Jr recently claimed the IBF mandatory spot on October 31st with a 12 round split decision win over Lee Selby, he’s not a big puncher.
U.S fans not familiar with Kambosos
Kambosos is an unknown with the U.S boxing fans, and he’s not a threat to Teofimo than Ryan Garcia, Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis, Devin Haney, and Vasily Lomachenko.
Teofimo, 23, is still not interested in giving Lomachenko a rematch after beating him by a 12 round decision last month on October 17th.
When asked this week if he’d be interested in giving Lomachenko a rematch, Teofimo gave his standard reply, ‘What for? I already beat him.” Teofimo Sr then said, “Lomachenko needs to win a belt first.”
WBA Super World flyweight champion Joshua Franco (17-1-2, 8 KOs) and challenger Andrew Moloney (21-1, 14 KOs) are looking to fight again to clear up the controversy surrounding their fight last Saturday night on the Terence Crawford vs. Kell Brook card in Las Vegas.
Franco and Moloney fought to a second-round no-decision. After Franco suffered an eye injury from what was ruled as caused by a head-butt, the fight was halted. However, no head clash was seen when ESPN showed slow-mo of the action.
If not for the eye injury being ruled as caused by a head-butt, Moloney, 29, would have won the fight, as he was getting the better of Franco through two rounds.
Bob Arum was pretty upset about it afterward, and he talked about not wanting to bring his fights back to Las Vegas. Could that be a reason why Arum is looking to stage the Lopez-Kambosos and Franco-Moloney card in Australia?
Teofimo not sure if he’ll stay at 135
“We have Ryan Garcia, and we still have Lomachenko. We don’t know what he’s going to do. Is he going to go down to 130, or is he going to stay at 135?” said Teofimo to Snowqueenla.
“I can’t consider Tank at 135 yet. He only fought once at 135, and he had issues making that weight. He did what he did with [Yuriorkis] Gamboa, and then he fought at 130 [against Leo Santa Cruz]. So what it comes to now is who is the next fish to catch.
“We got to see,” Teofimo said when asked if he’ll stay at 135 or move up to 140. “That’s why I’m staying in the gym now so that I don’t have any issues.
“I think one more fight at 135 just to stay active before making a fight at 140 against [Jose] Ramirez or [Josh] Taylor,” said Teofimo.
If Teofimo, 23, moves up to 140, he’ll find a ghost town at light-welterweight. IBF/WBA champion Josh Taylor and WBC/WBO champ Joe Ramirez are bot planning on moving up to 147 in 2021.
The two will be fighting for the undisputed 140-lb championship next year, and then after that, one or both could move up. Taylor says he’ll stick around long enough to defend the WBO title against fellow countryman Jack Catterall, but after that, it’s likely that he’ll go up to 147.
Teofimo would be better off staying at 135 for as long as possible before considering moving up to 140. Once he moves up, his best options will be against Regis Prograis, Mario Barrios, and Jose Zepeda.
Teofimo should stay at 135 for as long as he can safely make weight, then move up to 147 rather than 140, and go after the title holders in that division.
Lopez interested in Mikey Garcia fight if fans want it
“I don’t know. I heard Mikey [Garcia] is retired,” said Teofimo when asked if he’d like to fight Mikey Garcia. “I haven’t heard from him for years as long as the fans love it.
“Everybody was asking for Loma. We talked about it, and everybody wanted to make that fight happen, and we made that fight happen. So I go off of what the fans want,” said Lopez.
Teofimo should forget about trying to fight Mikey Garcia, considering that he appears to be looking to cash out against Manny Pacquiao.
Mikey doesn’t seem to be taking his career seriously any longer. He’s been calling out Pacquiao 24/7 and not showing interest in facing the top guys at 147, a division that he’s not suited for.
If Mikey gets the fight he wants against Pacquiao, he’ll have exhausted all his big matches. Losing to Pacquiao would put Mikey in a situation where he’d need to move back down to 140 or retire.
Teofimo is up for a fight with Tank Davis
“Tank, you’ve got your own problems to worry about. We’ll make that fight happen if we can. I know you don’t want it. That’s all I got to say,” said Teofimo. “None of these guys want to, none of them. All of them [the top lightweights] if I could.
“Yeah, I’d definitely fight Tank. It is mainly because many people think he’s a power puncher, and I’m a heavy hitter. I think they want to see some fight happen like that.
“I could say what type of fight I want, but it’s up to their side and their team. I think me and Loma I already did that. We fought, and one guy came out of it, and that was Teofimo.
“Now it’s up to those three guys to match-up. One of those three guys needs to match-up with one another to make this fight, and we can make this fight happen.
“There’s only one fight at 140 that I can make, and that’s between Ramirez and Taylor,” Lopez said. “They’re all moving up [to 147]. 140, those belts are up for grabs, I believe that,” said Teofimo.
Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis recently defeated WBA super featherweight champion Leo Santa Cruz, and he’s now saying that the 130-lb division is his natural weight.
Tank will likely stay at 130 and focus on fighting the guys down there rather than coming back up to fight Teofimo.
With Tank being signed to Top Rank and Tank Davis with Mayweather Promotions, that could be a big obstacle in making the fight happen.