Teofimo Lopez Sr. says he wants his son Teo to challenge WBC light welterweight champion Regis Prograis or WBO champion Josh Taylor next if he’s victorious over Sandor Martin this Saturday night on December 10th at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Teofimo Jr (17-1, 13 KOs) might disagree with his dad because he says he wants the fight with Taylor for a title shot at his WBO belt.
If that’s the fight that Teo is going to insist on taking, he may need to take another tune-up to keep him busy because Teofimo Sr says Taylor’s rematch with Jack Catterall will be postponed until February or March.
As long as Teofimo is willing to wait for that fight, he can definitely challenge Taylor. Of course, it’s going to look obvious that Teofimo is ducking the fight with WBC 140-lb champion Regis Prograis because he can face him next without waiting until February or March.
By choosing to wait on the Taylor fight, it seems obvious that Teofimo doesn’t want any of that smoke from Prograis (28-1, 24 KOs), who has been threatening to put him in the hospital due to the trash-talking he’s done towards him.
“Like I told everybody, nobody on this planet can beat my son. Nobody can beat my son,” said Teofimo Lopez Sr to Fighthype.
“The only way you can beat my son is if he’s sick. I know he’s asthmatic, and I know he was pressuring staying at 135 for too long. We should have left those belts.
“Even before we fought Loma, we were planning on leaving and moving up to 140 because he [Teofimo] couldn’t make the weight anymore. He wasn’t comfortable in there; he didn’t feel good; he felt weak.
“We took the chance because we wanted to undisputed all those titles. Beating Lomachenko was going to give us all the belts [excluding the WBC title held by Devin Haney at the time], and that’s why we did it.
“We got a little too greedy, and we stayed at 135, thinking that we were going to fight this dude Kambosos right away, but it didn’t happen like that. What happened was they postponed the fight seven or eight times, and that really damaged him [Teofimo] healthwise.
“Not the way we’re fighting, bro,” said Teofimo Sr. when asked if he sees his son fighting Devin Haney in 2023. “These guys got to move up. We’re already doing what we’re doing at 140.
“We’re getting closer to that belt. After this fight, we want Regis Prograis. We want Regis or Josh [Taylor]. I don’t see it possible with Josh because Josh has a fight, and they postponed it until February [against Jack Catterall] now.
“We want to stay active, but if you can fight us at the end of March or the beginning of April, that’ll be awesome. I don’t want my son not being active. I want him active every three months or every four months.
“He looked strong, and that’s what we need. We need somebody credible, somebody that everybody thinks is going to beat us,” said Teofimo Sr when asked about his thoughts on Prograis’ recent win over Jose Zepeda.
“We want to be the underdogs all the time. We don’t want to be like we’re going to beat these guys easy to show the world that we can do that. So come December 10th, everyone is going to see how much he’s [Teofimo] improved healthwise because he’s still the same Teofimo Lopez, of course.
“He’s learning because he’s maturing more, but he’s getting better. You learn from your mistakes. We drained him too much. We thought he was invincible, we thought he could stay at 135 forever, and that hurt us.
“He wanted to postpone the [Kambosos] fight again, and he fought sick. He made a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes. That’s not going to happen anymore.
“On Saturday, you’re going to see much improvement. What he did with [Pedro] Campo was just amazing. He’s just going to [improve]. He always does way better on Heisman night.
“Two Heisman nights, two knockouts. We want to make it three Heisman nights, three knockouts. Listen, we were melting ourselves, making 135.
“We were at 135 for eight years. No one fighter has done that, nobody. He’s not God; he’s not Superman. The only thing that worries me about him is his health because he’s an asthmatic person.
“Losing weight is very dangerous for somebody that’s asthmatic because you’re draining your lungs, your draining every organ in your body. We have to be careful with that. Everything else is fine. As long as he’s good health-wise, nobody can beat him,” said Teofimo Sr. about Teo.
