By Huck Allen: IBF mandatory George Kamnbosos Jr. is reportedly dragging his feet about agreeing to move the date of his title challenge from October 4th to October 16th for his fight against IBF/WBA/WBC/WBO lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez.
ESPN is reporting that Kambosos Jr. wants more than $300K additional money for him to ink the contract to move the date to October 16th.
Triller didn’t give Teofimo extra money to sign his contract to move to the new date, so the company WON’T be giving anything different to accommodate Kambosos.
Triller could relinquish their rights
If Kambosos Jr. doesn’t sign off on moving the date, Triller will lose the rights to stage the Teofimo-Kambosos fight, and it’ll go to Eddie Hearn, who would place the contest on DAZN.
That would make many DAZN subscribers happy, as many of them are unlikely to bother purchasing the Teofimo vs. Kambosos fight if it’s on PPV, and it’s not a pay-per-view-worthy fight in the minds of many boxing fans.
The October 4th date won’t work for the Lopez-Kambosos Jr. fight because the Oakland Raiders vs. San Diego Chargers football game is taking place on the same night, taking away a lot of the viewers.
Triller Fight Club CEO Ryan Kavanaugh told ESPN that Kambosos Jr. (19-0, 10 KOs) still hasn’t signed off on moving the October 4th date to October 16th.
Interestingly, if Kambosos fails to agree to move the date, the rights of the fight will revert to the second-highest bidder in Matchroom Boxing. That would be Eddie Hearn, who would have control over staging the Teofimo vs. Kambosos Jr fight.
Less money for Teofimo & Kambosos
This could mean less money for Teofimo and Kambosos Jr. if Triller gives up their rights to stage the fight. Triller won the purse bid with $6.018 million, and the next highest bid from Hearn’s Matchroom was $3.506 million.
Kambosos will make $2,106,300 and Teofimo $3.9117 million if Triller stages the fight on October 16th. But if Triller relinquishes their rights and Matchroom stages the contest, Kambosos Jr. will get $1.2271 million and Teofimo $2.2789 million. That’s a significant drop-off in pay for both fighters if Triller relinquishes their rights to the fight.
It’s challenging to believe Kambosos Jr. will continue to refuse to sign up on the fight knowing that he could make less money if Triller relinquishes their rights for the contest, leaving it to the highest bidder Matchroom Boxing.
Teofimo, 24, has agreed to move the fight from October 4th to 16th, but Triller still needs Kambosos.
“The same contract that Teofimo signed is sitting in front of Kambosos to sign to fight on the 16th,” Kavanaugh said to ESPN. “Triller is not going to pay anything extra or make extra accommodations, as it didn’t for Teofimo.
“Triller is already paying him close to 10 times what he’s [Kambosos Jr] made in the past. If he were for some reason to not do this deal with us, he would make significantly less. We are confident this fight is occurring, and he’s going to sign the contract soon.”
Teofimo was previously scheduled to defend his four lightweight titles against Kambosos on October 4th at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Triller changed their minds about staging the Teofimo-Kambosos Jr. fight on that date when it became known that they would be going head to head with the Raiders vs. Chargers NFL game on the same Monday night.
Teofimo wisely inked his portion of the contract to move the fight to October 16th, as he and his father want to get this fight with Kambosos out of the way so they can move on to bigger fights.
Teofimo needs to move on
They’ve already invested a year with this fight, and they want to get it over with, so they can go after undisputed light welterweight champion Josh Taylor.
In hindsight, Teofimo should have vacated his IBF lightweight title when the International Boxing Federation ordered him to defend against Kambosos.
Teofimo had massive opportunities for bigger fights against Vasily Lomachenko, Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Joseph Jo Jo’ Diaz Jr.. Still, instead, he took the least compelling option by choosing to defend against Kambosos.
Was that move by Teofimo based on fear? It doesn’t make sense, but that decision has cost Teofimo a year of his career. If Teofimo continues to make bizarre moves in the future, he might not have much to show when his career is up.