By Sean Jones: Teofimo Lopez has less than admiring views of the other top lightweights in the division, who he sees as wanting to be like Floyd Mayweather Jr, but who lack the motivation to work hard like him.
Undisputed lightweight champion Teofimo (16-0, 12 KOs) says the other top guys want to be like Mayweather bring in $100 million, but they’re not ready to work hard to achieve that.
Teofimo feels he’s willing to work hard to stay on the top following his upset win over Vasily Lomachenko last October. For all we know, that victory for Teofimo might be his 15 minutes of fame.
With Teofimo is scampering in the opposite direction of Lomachenko, it suggests that he doesn’t want any of that smoke for a rematch.
Frankly, Teofimo is lucky that Lomachenko didn’t go on the attack early in the fight because he likely beat him by a lopsided 12 round decision. Lomachenko completely dominated the second half of the contest, appearing to win 5 out of the last 6 rounds. What was impressive about that is Lomachenko did it with an injured right shoulder.
The 23-year-old Teofimo still hasn’t shown that he’s capable of beating the best.
Teo’s one big victory in his career against 32-year-old Lomachenko (14-2, 10 KOs) was arguably aided by the Ukrainian fighter’s shoulder injury.
Now that Loma has had surgery to repair the problem, he’s had no luck getting Teofimo to face him again.
“They all want to be Mayweather and $100 million, but look at Floyd. Floyd trained like he was broke, and he was still able to live his life and not blow up.
“So, what’s their excuse? I’m just the truth, man. Just say it how it is,” said Teofimo to Fighthub.
WBC lightweight champion Devin Haney (25-0, 15 KOs) is working hard like Mayweather. Obviously, Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis and Ryan Garcia aren’t showing Mayweather’s work ethic, but I don’t think those guys care.
With Teofimo, he’s not showing the courage that Mayweather exhibited during his best years. When Teo could be looking to fight Lomachenko in a rematch, he’s chosen to take the soft patch by taking on his IBF mandatory George Kambosos Jr next. That’s a weak move by Teofimo.
It’s nice that Teofimo wants to lump him alongside Mayweather when it comes to being a hard worker, but if you’re not going to fight great opposition, what’s the point. Teofimo fighting Kambosos Jr makes him look like a cherry-picker.
Kambosos Jr has fought, not really, and he sure did look poor against fading fighters Mickey Bey and Lee Selby recently in winning close split decisions.
“I became undisputed; I got all the belts,” said Lomachenko. “And unlike some fighters and some people, they may go and celebrate, go on vacation, and wait to get a fight. Nah, man.
“I don’t know what it was, but when I accomplished that and the history behind it, not only did it humble me, but it drove me even more,” said Teofimo.
As you can tell, Teofimo is really milking his win over Lomachenko for all it’s worth. It’s too bad Teo isn’t willing to aspire to greatness by taking on Lomachenko in a rematch instead of going for an easy fight against a very, very limited Kambosos.
The Australian fighter Kambosos was getting lit up like a Christmas tree by non-puncher Lee Selby last October.
Triller will need a lot of pay-per-view buys for them to break even the $6.2 million they paid to win the purse bid for the Teofimo vs. Kambosos Jr fight. According to reports, Triller will need 1 million buys for them to break even. If that number is true, it’s going to be difficult, very difficult for the fight to bring in that many buys.
In recent years, the only fights that have brought in over 1 million buys were the Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin fights. Teofimo vs. Kambosos Jr is nowhere near the fight in terms of interest.
Casual boxing fans have never seen Kambosos fight. What is Triller is expecting? That might not even bring in 50,000 buys, let alone 1 million.