Teofimo Lopez may soon be making an official apology. If not, the anger over the things the former lightweight champ said when speaking with Punsh Drunk Boxing will only intensify. As well as the sense of shock and outrage. Lopez, who will fight Josh Taylor in a WBO 140 pound title fight on June 10 in New York, came across as racist and a whole lot of other bad things during the heated interview.
Lopez verbally attacked ESPN commentators, former champions Andre Ward and Tim Bradley, while Lopez also spoke of how he loves the fact that “in my sport, I can kill a guy and get away with it, so it’s cool.”
Lopez really must be in a pretty bad place right now to be coming out with the garbage he came out with in the interview.
“One think I love about my sport, I can kill a guy and get away with it, so it’s cool,” Lopez began. “Commentators are the ones that convince everybody if someone else is winning. Watch the George Kambosos fight without the commentators, watch my last fight (against Sandor Martin, Lopez winning a close decision) without the commentators and you will see the results. At the fighter meeting, I dissed Andre Ward and Timothy Bradley in front of ESPN’s production and all of them, for all their affiliation and corruption that they do. And what happened? I put more weight on my back. When I slipped with the first knockdown they called, what did Bradley say right away? ‘He’s hurt, he’s hurt.’
“So I don’t sugar-coat shit. All these motha f****a ride and suck d**k. And just to put it more on this fight, this is my last fight on ESPN. This is why this fight means everything. If they want the black fighters, they can keep them.”
Again, look out for an official apology from Lopez soon. This is just disgusting talk from a world class fighter, or from any fighter – from any person.
Lopez is a role-model to so many young people and they will hear about the awful things he has said. You can bet now that defending champ Taylor will be the man the fans root for on June 10.
Lopez has not come across as racist before, but he sure does in this interview. While the talk of “getting away with killing” another human being, that basically doesn’t deserve comment on.
Shame on Lopez here. Big time.
