By Sean Jones: Tuesday’s previously scheduled purse bid for the Teofimo Lopez vs. George Kambosos Jr fight has been rescheduled for this Thursday.
Teofimo is hoping to get more than the contract minimum for this fight against his little-known IBF mandatory Kambosos Jr (19-0, 10 KOs), but as his promoter Bob Arum quite correctly points out, it’s not a marquee fight.
Promoter Lou DiBella expressed doubts recently that Teofimo will get the $5 million that he’s rumored to be hoping to get for the Kambosos fight. That’s a lot of money for what a basis title defense.
We’ll have to see what Teofimo chooses to do if the winning bid on Thursday is the same amount that he was going to get from Top Rank for his contract minimum.
Will Teofimo stubbornly accept the money for what is expected to be an easy fight, or does he do the smart thing by vacating the IBF title, and heading in the direction for a big payday against Devin Haney?
Whoever wins the Teofimo vs. Kambosos purse bid will have a fight that likely won’t bring in huge ratings, and it won’t be worth much, especially with it being a one-off. Teofimo is still under contract with Top Rank for the next 3 1/2 years, so he’ll return to them and continue fighting on ESPN.
For example, if Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn wins Thursday’s Teofimo-Kambosos purse bid with a huge bid, he’ll put the fight on DAZN; it likely won’t bring in massive ratings because there’s zero demand for that fight.
Afterward, Teofimo will return to ESPN, and the DAZN fans won’t be seeing him unless they tune in on ESPN for his future fights. It would be worth it for Hearn to bid on the Teofimo vs. Kambosos fight if there were massive interest in this bout, but there isn’t.
Yeah, Kambosos Jr is a mandatory challenger. Still, he’s not widely known by American boxing fans, and his best career wins have been a pair of split decision victories over 37-year-old Mickey Bey and Lee Selby.
Those are aging fighters that all of the Four Kings would likely knock out. The fact that Kambosos Jr just barely scraped by those guys tells you a lot about him and his talent.
Some boxing fans believe that Teofimo would hurriedly vacate his IBF title if Vasily Lomachenko were his mandatory instead of Kambosos. Sean Jones hates to say it, but I have to agree.
If Lomachenko were Teofimo’s mandatory with the International Boxing Federation, I could see him getting rid of that belt like it was a hot potato. It’s a different story when your mandatory is someone that you’re expected to trounce, which is what we’re likely to see with Teofimo facing Kambosos.
Teofimo-Kambosos is not a pay-per-view-level fight. If whoever wins the purse bid can string it out long enough, they can stage the fight in front of fans. It might be better off for Teofimo to get this albatross of a fight out of the way as fast as possible so that he can move on to bigger and better things.
This is a purse bid that keeps moving, moving, and moving. Hopefully, this is the last time because undisputed lightweight champion Teofimo (16-0, 12 KOs) needs to get this fight out of the way so that he can focus on facing the Four Kings in the 135-lb division.
The boxing world wants to see Teofimo take on Devin Haney, and Ryan Garcia, Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis.
Fans also want to see Teofimo give Vasily Lomachenko a rematch because there are still many unanswered questions on whether Lopez would have beaten the two-time Olympic gold medalist if he hadn’t been fighting with a bum shoulder.
Teofimo’s complete lack of interest in fighting Lomachenko again arguably betrays the worries that he has about facing him a second time. When you avoid a rematch and choose to take a lower-paying fight against Kambosos, it tells you a little bit about the mindset for Teofimo.
I mean, if Teofimo believed he could beat Lomachenko, he would obviously be giving him an immediate rematch, even if he had to give up his IBF title.
Fans won’t care if Teofimo sacrifices that title to take a much bigger fight against Lomachenko. The only one that cares is Teofimo, and you have to ask why.