By Eóin Kennedy: “Have I still got it?” asked Teofimo Lopez after dethroning Josh Taylor last Saturday night in New York. This time the question was asked with tongue firmly in cheek as opposed to when the now infamous line was picked up by cameras when Lopez was caught saying it to his team after an extremely unconvincing performance against Sandor Martin.
That fight against the Spaniard now feels like a lifetime ago, and for all intents and purposes, it is. In that lifetime, Josh Taylor was the one true ruler of the light-welterweight division, but he has been usurped by Lopez, and that leaves us to look at what fights are possibly on the horizon in a division that is stacked with talent.
Beating the number one fighter in a division essentially ascends you to that spot, and that is where Lopez sits now, but the 140-pound weight class is one that has four different champions holding each of the governing body’s world titles, which means four men lay claim to being number one.
Of the other three champions (Regis Prograis, Rollie Romero, and Subriel Matias), Prograis has the greatest claim to disputing Lopez as the number #1 fighter at super-lightweight. Prograis has only tasted defeat once, and that was four years ago in a tightly-fought war against Josh Taylor. Since then, the New Orleans man’s career has been stop-start, and he has hopped around promotional companies, which hasn’t helped his cause.
After stints with the now-defunct Probellum and the freak show Triller, Prograis has landed with a reputable promoter at last, Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom. The only problem with signing for Matchroom is that Hearn and Top Rank’s Bob Arum are perpetually embroiled in a public war of words, and Arum promotes Teofimo Lopez.
Given the promotional kinks, this fight probably won’t happen any time soon, but it would be fascinating if it does materialize. Lopez is the renaissance man of boxing, reborn after being written off by a whole sport. Prograis, despite having promotional issues, has still managed to quietly go on a four-fight knock-out winning streak and regain a world title.
None of those four Prograis fights made too many headlines outside of the boxing world, but what those that paid attention saw was a fighter that had tasted defeat once before and fight in a vicious and destructive manner that showed he never wanted to taste it again, and continuing such form could lead him into the pound-for-pound conversations.
Rolly Romero is currently playing boxing’s new bad boy, and he was gifted a vacant world title fight by the WBA and gifted a stoppage victory by referee Tony Weeks in a decision that was cruel on old war horse Ismael Barroso. To his credit, Rolly acknowledged that the stoppage was premature in his post-fight interviews, and his job is to turn up and fight, he did that, and alas, he is the WBA world champion.
He and Teofimo Lopez are extremely close personally, and Rolly has acknowledged it would be tough for them to fight, but Lopez has taken a more pragmatic approach intimating that he’s willing to put friendship aside to fight his buddy. Either way, it’s a fight the oddsmakers would believe that Lopez would win with ease.
The fourth horseman of the super-lightweight division is Subriel Matias, the IBF world champion. Matias will be a tricky one to match against the other champions as he’s a talented fighter but brings little mainstream name recognition.
Any 140-pound fighter will be thinking that Rolly is an easier fight that would pay two or three times(maybe more) than the amount likely on offer to fight Matias. If the division does become a race to undisputed, which thankfully is in vogue right now in boxing, then the other champions may just leave this dark horse of the division until last when trying to collect all four belts.
A combination of mandatory challengers being called by the governing bodies and the promotional companies engaging in their customary bickering may mean that the super-lightweight division has to simmer for a little bit before it sizzles again. But with undisputed lightweight champion Devin Haney inevitably moving up divisions soon and with two-weight world champion Shakur Stevenson expected to follow not far behind him, the fun may just be getting started. Josh Taylor has doubled down on his intention to move up to welterweight.
Four separate men now hold each of the four belts that once belonged to the Scotsman. The race is now on to emulate him and hold them all at the same time.
