By Sean Jones: George Kambosos Jr. is already mapping out an undisputed clash with WBC lightweight champion Devin Haney. Should he unseat IBF/WBA/WBC Franchise/WBO 135-lb champion Teofimo Lopez this Saturday night. The Teofimo vs. Kambosos fight card will be shown live on DAZN.
This is Teofimo’s first defense of his WBA, WBC Franchise & WBO 135-lb titles he captured a little over a year ago against Vasily Lomachenko on October 17th. Teofimo could fight Lomachenko in a rematch for big money but chose to defend against his IBF mandatory challenger Kambosos.
It’s a baffling move and a total waste of time, but it shows that there are some confidence issues for Teofimo that led to him taking this MUCH lesser fight against Kambosos rather than doing the logical thing by facing Lomachenko in a rematch.
Teo’s rationale for fighting Kambosos was that he wanted to hold onto his IBF title because he would have been stripped due to his mandatory defense being due.
Interestingly, Teofimo reportedly will be vacating his four lightweight titles after his defense against Kambosos, making it pointless for him to take this fight.
If Teofimo could have made more money fighting Lomachenko in a rematch or by fighting Gervonta Davis, it would have made more sense to take one of those fights, even if it meant losing his IBF title.
You can argue that Teofimo may have lacked the confidence to take the riskier fights against Tank or Lomachenko, so he opted to take the easy sure-thing payday against Kambosos.
The Australian Kambosos believes a fight between him and the unbeaten WBC 135-lb strap holder Haney (26-0, 15 KOs) can bring in as much as 90,000 fans in a stadium fight in Australia.
Besides the daunting task of the weaker, slower-punching Kambosos pulling off a massive upset against the younger 24-year-old Teofimo, it’s difficult to imagine a fight involving Haney bringing in 90,000 fans.
Haney isn’t a big name yet in the U.S, and, likely, he’s even less known in Kambosos’ native Australia. You would think that Kambosos would need a more established star like Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis to bring in a massive crowd in Australia.
It’s not that Haney, 22, isn’t a good fighter, but he’s just starting, and he hasn’t beaten anyone other than older guys, 35-year-old Jorge Linares, 40-year-old Yuriorkis Gamboa, and a bunch of obscure fighters.
Although Kambosos (19-0, 10 KOs) is a clear underdog for his title challenge against the unbeaten Teofimo (16-0, 12 KOs), he’s convinced that he’ll come out on top on Saturday night when the two battle at Madison Square Garden in New York.
“Me and Haney have been talking as well. We’ve been chatting, we have that mutual respect, and I’m in his corner to win his fight; I’m hoping he wins his fight,” Kambosos said to The Sun.
“We’re going to handle business and get it on. Whatever agreement the world thinks [Teofimo] and Lopez has, it’s not true. What makes more sense? And I know Eddie [Hearn] loves them big stadium fights, so it makes perfect sense.”
Kambosos stands a chance of beating Teofimo if the New Yorker is badly weight drained and if his reported injury is bad enough to percent him from fighting at a high level.
“There’s a better fight and a bigger fight in a stadium in Australia with 80,000 or 90,000 people. We all know Lopez isn’t a big seller; whatever he thinks he is, he isn’t,’ said the 28-year-old Kambosos.
If everything falls apart for Teofimo in terms of being weight drained and his injury slows him, Kambosos can win on Saturday. Apart from that, this is a terrible mismatch with Teofimo likely slaughtering Kambosos.