Teofimo Lopez Sr says George Kambosos didn’t beat Teo

By Boxing News - 03/30/2022 - Comments

By Allan Fox: Teofimo Lopez Sr. is still insistent that his son Teo didn’t lose his November 27th fight against George Kambosos Jr. He feels that the judges got it wrong and that Kambosos didn’t do enough to take the four belts off Teofimo (16-1, 12 KOs).

For the record, the underdog Kambosos (20-0, 10 KOs) won a 12 round split decision on Teofimo’s home turf at Madison Square Garden in New York.

According to Teofimo Sr, Teo fought with an injured hand, elbow, and lung condition that prevented him from being 100% for the fight with Kambosos.

In hindsight, it would have been smart for Teofimo to postpone the fight until he was healthy because it sounds he was falling apart physically at the time of the contest.

What made Teofimo look bad after the fight was his decision not to try and avenge his loss to Kambosos because he could have fought him in a rematch.

Kambosos offered Teofimo a second fight, even though there wasn’t a rematch clause in the contract due to it being a mandatory defense. Instead of accepting Kambosos’ offer, Teofimo chose to move up to 140, which made him looked scared in the eyes of many boxing fans.

Teofimo Sr. says Teo didn’t lose to Kambosos

“Let me tell you something. Ain’t nobody in the world can beat my son,” said Teofimo Sr. to Fighthype in reflecting on Teo’s 12 round split decision defeat at the hands of George Kambosos.

“I tell everybody, the only way you can beat him because my son is asthmatic, and the only way somebody can beat my son is if he’s not healthy.

“You don’t think Kambosos was listening to him breathing hard? Come on, bro. That motivated that dude. That dude’s fake, he’s a fake dude, bro.

Image: Teofimo Lopez Sr says George Kambosos didn't beat Teo

“My son was wheezing, I was trying to stop the fight,” said Teofimo Sr. on his Teo was laboring during his title defense against Kambosos on November 27th at Madison Square Garden in New York.

“In the third or fourth round, I said, ‘Do you want me to stop the fight?’ He was wheezing, bro. He couldn’t breathe. He had a hole in his chest and stuff. That’s the past, I don’t want to talk about that no more.

“He’s 100% good because he knows what happened,” said Teofimo Sr. on Teo not mentally damaged from his loss to Kambosos like some boxing fans believe to be the case.

“It’s not like we lost that fight. That was a split decision fight. I really believe they just wanted to shut me up. There’s a lot of hate in boxing. I don’t what the other two judges were looking at, do you know what I’m saying? But you’ve got to beat the champ to be the champ.

“My son hurt that boy. That was a flash knockdown that my son had, and it was because of the same s***. After the first minute, he [Teofimo] was doing amazing, and we were working on a great plan, and then, ‘bap,’ he falls.

“He gets up right away. You’ve got to give him something because he’s the world champion,” Lopez Sr. said about Teofimo. “He’s got four belts.

“You can’t just give out those four belts to somebody [Kambosos]. You’ve got to earn that s***. He didn’t dominate my son in the sense that he won convincingly. He’s the world champion,” said Teofimo Sr.

Teo making “big comeback” in 2022

“Now, we’re with Top Rank, everything is good and I’m happy,” Lopez Sr. said. “Bob [Arum] said nothing changes, everything stays the same. He didn’t lose any of his sponsors.

We just need to make a big comeback this year and show the whole world why he’s always been the best and become undisputed back to back.

“We’re going to bring it back. At 140, he’s going to feel amazing,” Lopez Sr. said of Teofimo, who is moving up to light-welterweight in July.

The 140-lb division is going to be ours. We’re going to start in June. To be more precise, I think it’s going to be in the first week of June or something like that.

Image: Teofimo Lopez Sr says George Kambosos didn't beat Teo

“We want him to be 100%,” said Lopez Sr. about the young 25-year-old Teofimo Jr. “He’s been fighting hurt since the Loma fight. He had that injury before the Loma fight. The elbow injury and the wrist injury, he had it before the Loma fight.

“We didn’t  get surgery or anything like that because we were going to fight Kambosos right away with Triller and six million dollars and all this s***.

“We went for that, and I think it was a bad decision. I think that we should have left the belts right after Loma and got him healthy.

“That’s in the past, but I’m just telling everybody, man. He will be world champion again at 140 and maybe two more fights after that, he’ll be undisputed at 140,” said Lopez Sr. predicting Teofimo will soon be a two-division undisputed champion. “That’s something that nobody has ever done, back to back.”

Lopez Sr expects Teofimo’s power to carry to 140

“He told me that when he was going to fight in June [of last year], we were ready,” Teofimo Sr said. “He told me and he even started crying because he told me, ‘Dad, we trained so hard, we were ready.’

“He felt 100% good that night, and then they canceled the fight [with Kambosos], and they kept on canceling. Then you keep on training, and then they keep on canceling. That f*** up your head, do you know what I’m saying?

“I’m not going to make any excuses. I’m just going to let everybody know that I don’t want to take about that no more. It’s a new era now at 140, and everybody is going to see why he’s the best.

“Do you know what? My son is so good because he can carry that punch to 154, 147, and not a lot of people can do that at 135. But for us, it’s going to be easier because we spar with world champions.

“Since he was 13, he was fighting big dudes. 140, 147, 154-pounders. Since he was 13, 14, 15, world champions. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like [Yordenis] Ugas, like Shawn Porter, all these great fighters, and he would do really good.

“Why? Because of his speed and because he can carry a punch, and that’s why I tell everybody that longevity is better than you winning one fight and then nobody is going to remember you because you’re going to keep on losing,” Teofimo Sr. said.

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