By Sean Jones: Teofimo Lopez’s feet aren’t touching the ground right now with him hoping that his next title defense against George Kambosos Jr will bring in 2 million pay-per-view buys on Triller in May or June.
Triller surprised the boxing world recently with their insanely high $6 million bid for what IBF/WBA/WBC/WBO lightweight champion Teofimo’s mandatory defense against Kambosos (19-0, 10 KOs).
This will be a good learning experience for Triller to find out a little bit about what sells or doesn’t sell. You can’t stick a mismatch on PPV and expects gullible boxing fans to purchase it in high numbers.
It’s unclear whether the people in charge at Triller know anything about boxing because if they did, they’d have known that the Australian Kambosos isn’t a household in the U.S, and it’s not a fight that will bring in a lot of PPV buys.
Is 2 million PPV buys realistic?
If Triller prices the Teofimo vs. Kamboso fight card right, it might being in a respectable number of buys, but they would likely need to sell it quite low.
As long as Triller is OK with the Teofimo-Kambosos bringing in low numbers, it shouldn’t be a big deal. But if Triller has an unrealistic vision of the Teofimo fight bringing in over 1 million buys, they’re going to be disappointed because it’s not going to do those types of numbers.
There’s a reason why Teofimo’s promoters at Top Rank and Matchroom boxing didn’t bid high for this fight. They know it’s not a great fight. It’s troubling that Teofimo doesn’t recognize that himself.
If Teofimo’s ego is that much out of whack to where he’s overestimating his popularity, it’s going to be bad for Top Rank or whoever ends up as his next promoter. Moving forward into the future, try to imagine Teofimo asking his promoter for $10-15 million for each fight and then blowing up when he’s not given that amount.
If Teofimo isn’t given his asking price each time by his promoters, will he take it to the media to grumble and then force a purse bid?
Only time will tell, but it’s quite possible we could see the beginning of a trend for Teofimo if he’s not given huge money each time he fights.
Pricing the card at $70 will almost surely result in very buys. The boxing public hasn’t seen a fight generate over 2 million PPV buys since the Floyd Mayweahther Jr vs. Conor McGregor match in 2017, and that was a special case.
McGregor was a popular UFC fighter going up against boxing’s biggest PPV star in Mayweather. You can’t have the same variables with the Teofimo vs. Kambosos match.
You got an Australian guy that has beaten no one special and who is an unknown facing an upstart, whose claim to fame is edging Vasily Lomachenko last October.
Why doesn’t Teofimo want to fight Lomachenko again?
It’s still too early for Teofimo to be viewed as a star. He needs to give Lomachenko a rematch, which he is no interest in doing, and prove that he’s better than Gervonta Davis, Ryan Garcia, and Devin Haney.
Teofimo would likely beat Haney and Ryan Garcia, as those are two of the flawed kings. But Lomachenko likely beats Teofimo in the rematch, and Tank would probably knock Teo out. Teofimo is a good fighter, but he’s definitely not as good as he thinks he is.
The fact that Teofimo is so adamant about not wanting to fight Lomachenko again reveals the worries that he has. If Teofimo were confident that he could beat Lomachenko, he would take that fight because he would make more money and gain more fame. When a fighter walks away from money, it generally means they don’t think they can win.
Whatever way you want to spin it, the much bigger Teofimo didn’t strongly finish the fight against Lomachenko. Teofimo was getting walked down by Lomachenko and battered until finishing the fight with a good 12th round.
That wasn’t a Mayweather-esque performance by Teofimo. It looked like an oversized lightweight, who should be fighting at 140, doing well initially only because Lomachenko wasn’t throwing punching, but then getting battered from rounds 7 through 11 by the Ukrainian.
It wasn’t a superstar type of performance by Teofimo. He looked like an oversized 135-pounder using his size to better a smaller, older opponent.
Some boxing fans feel that Teofimo is a weight bully and that his short-term success will end when he moved in the division that he should be fighting at, given his huge frame.
If Triller, you need to be mindful when it comes to pricing it. I’d say $5 to $10 would be ideal for Teofimo vs. Kambosos, but no higher than that. If they sell this fight for $70, they’ll be lucky if they bring in 50,000 buys.
Lopez hasn’t done enough yet
What Triller might not be aware of is the fact that the 23-year-old Teofimo has only had two fights during his career against notable opposition in Vasily Lomachenko and Richard Commey.
Of those two, only Lomachenko is well known to some extent with the casual boxing fans. You have to be a hardcore boxing fan to know who Commey is. As far as the rest of the opposition Teofimo has fought, they’re not popular fighters. That’s why it’s premature for Triller or any promotional company to put Teofimo on pay-per-view against a simple contender like Kambosos.
Lopez’s recent fight against former WBA/WBC/WBO lightweight champion Vasily Lomachenko brought in high ratings on ESPN on October 17th. The reason for that was because Lomachenko was well known, and he was perceived as the #1 fighter at 135.
In contrast, Kambosos isn’t well known to the U.S public, and he’s not considered the best or even the second-best in the division. Kambosos is just a contender, and not being given any chance of beating Teofimo.
“My fight [against Geoge Kamboso Jr] will be the main event,” said Teofimo Lopez to the AK & Barak Show on DAZN. “If we can hit 2 million pay-per-view buys, I’m on the cusp of becoming a pay-per-view star,” said Teofimo.
Teofimo sounds naive about the potential buy-rate for his title defense against Kamboso. On paper, this is a mismatch as Kambosos struggled recently in beating old-timers Lee Selby and Mickey Bey by split decisions.
If Kambosos was a huge talent, he would have dominated those two fighters rather than beating them by narrow decision wins. But even if Kambosos did obliterate them, he’s still not well known, which means the Teofimo would still need to singlehandedly carry the entire promotion as he’ll be doing in this case
“Triller said they wanted to most exciting fighter in the game to bring to their platform. They found the right one!” said Teofimo on Instagram.
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