By Jim Calfa: Devin Haney reacted with delight at the news of IBF/WBA/WBF Franchise/WBO lightweight champion Teofimo ‘Takeover’ Lopez Jr. losing to George Kambosos Jr. by a 12 round split decision last Saturday night at MSG in New York City.
WBC lightweight champion Haney expressed his happiness on Twitter, calling Teofimo a “fraud” and “crazy.”
Had Teofimo won, he would have likely fought Haney next in a massive fight in the first quarter of 2022.
With the loss to Kambosos, Teofimo (16-1, 12 KOs) won’t be fighting Haney and will instead be looking to rebuild his career at 140 against a still to be determined opponent.
Devin (26-0, 15 KOs) says he wants to fight Kambosos with all four belts on the line, as long as he successfully defeats Joseph ‘JoJo’ Diaz Jr. (32-1-1, 15 KOs) next Saturday, December 4th live on DAZN at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Haney says Teofimo “was a fraud”
“I hope it all makes sense now! Teo was a f**** fraud!” said Devin Haney in reacting to Teofimo’s loss to Kambosos Jr last Saturday.
“Congrats, George Kambosos. Well deserved victory; you worked hard for it! Let’s make it happen for all the belts! #RealUndisputed.
“Oh yeah, Teo has gone crazy… I told y’all this already😭,” said Haney.
“100% focused on JoJo Diaz! You guys will see Dec 4th! #ImReady,” Haney said about his title defense against Joseph ‘JoJo’ Diaz Jr. next Saturday night.
From the looks of it, WBC lightweight champion Haney (26-0, 15 KOs) is jubilant about the news of Teofimo suffering his first career defeat to Kambosos.
If Haney was thinking clearly about what Teofimo’s defeat means to him regarding his pocketbook, he should be sad. The money that Haney would have made in a fight against Teofimo would have been massive, but now that’s gone.
If he’s victorious against Joseph ‘JoJo’ Diaz Jr. next Saturday night on December 4th, Haney will make decent money fighting Kambosos Jr. in early 2022.
However, the money Haney will get fighting Kambosos won’t be the same as he would have gotten fighting Teofimo.
Lopez Sr: Teofimo is still the best on the planet
“The people know who won tonight. It doesn’t matter what the judges say, we won,” said Teofimo Lopez Sr. to Seconds Out. “That was a flash knockdown; everybody knows that,” said Lopez Sr. on Teofimo getting knocked down in the first round by Kambosos.
“He came back up, he was never hurt, and he talked to me. He went, ‘Dad, I was never hurt.’ I took the fight, it was an easy fight for him, and he won every round.
“Do you give Kambosos two rounds? Okay, yes. Three rounds? Okay, yes. Even four rounds, but come on, man. What happened to us was horrible, horrible. I could not believe it.
“The number one lesson was don’t f*** with the industry because the industry could hurt you,” said Teofimo Sr. when asked what was the #1 lesson that he learned from Lopez’s loss to Kambosos.
“I told him [Teofimo] a lot, from now on we’re going to stay quiet and not mention no names. We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing.
“My son is still the best on the planet, and I told everybody, ‘We didn’t get knocked out, we didn’t get hurt,” said Teofimo Sr. “He was never hurt in the fight. We brought it back to this guy, and everybody knows,” Lopez Sr. said.
The loss for Teofimo to Kambosos showed that he is NOT the best fighter on the planet at 135, and he may not even be the fifth-best because there are arguably a half dozen fighters at lightweight that can probably beat the Australian.
Before last Saturday’s fight, Kambosos had barely beaten Mickey Bey and Lee Selby, both of which are older fringe-level lightweights.
The way Teofimo fought, he would have likely lost to those two older fighters Bey and Selby.
Conditioning-wise, Teofimo fought as he had only trained hard enough to go three rounds at a fast pace.
Teofimo will knock everybody out from now on
“Madison Square Garden was booing this s***. It was no freaking effort; we won every round,” said Lopez Sr. in stating his view that Teofimo deserved to win a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision over Kambosos.
“I’ll probably give him [Kambosos] two rounds because of the flash knockdown. I know what my son has, and I taught him to win every round by touching every two seconds. Every two seconds, he was touching.
“There’s no way in the points system that this guy [Kambosos] won a freaking round, and that’s just the way it is. We don’t got to perfect nothing,” said Lopez Sr. on Teofimo.
“It’s just that he’s been at 135 for too long. He’s been at 135 for eight years since 2016, when he fought in the Olympics.
“It’s time for him to move up [to 140] to be stronger so he can defeat all these people because from now on, he’s going to knock everybody out,” said Teofimo Lopez Sr.
You could buy what Lopez Sr. is saying about Teofimo knocking everybody out from this point forward if he had better stamina. Still, his fights against Kambosos, Vasily Lomachenko, and Masayoshi Nakatani proved that he’s essentially a six-round fighter.
Teofimo gets tired too quickly, even in the first half of his fights. , he fades quickly, and he doesn’t land shots every two seconds.
If Teofimo could have landed shots every two seconds against Kambosos, he would have easily won the fight last Saturday night.