By: Sean Crose
It’s been a long time coming, but WBC, WBO, IBF, and WBC lightweight titlist Teofimo Lopez, 16-0, and mandatory challenger George Kambosos, 19-0, are ready to finally face off this weekend. Their scheduled 12 round holiday weekend battle will go down at the Theater in Madison Square Garden and will be broadcast live on the DAZN streaming service. Although the 24 year old Lopez is known for being a brilliant self-promoter, it looks as if there may be some bad blood between himself and the 28 year old contender.
“You have to know your place and on Saturday, God is going to humble this man, through me,” says Lopez. “A lot of these people are so ambitious and that’s OK, you have to be. But the thing is, sometimes you don’t get it because you probably won’t carry it the right way. You’re not going to be a people’s champ. You’re going to spend your money on yourself rather than giving back like a lot of fighters do.”
As far as Lopex is concerned, Kambosos hasn’t behaved in a way that makes the native of Australia worthy of respect. “It’s all about being the people’s champ,” Lopez says. “Ali was the greatest of all time for those things. He made a strong, strong impact on the sport, so for George, I have no respect for him at all – at all.”
Neither Lopez nor Kambosos has fought in over a year. That may be common for some contemporary high-level fighters, but the Lopez-Kambosos fight was expected to go down months ago. Unfortunately, everything from Covid-19 to promotional failures got in the way. On Saturday, however, the two men will finally be able to settle things in the ring. And, make no mistake about it, Lopez feels he has a score to settle.
“The amount of disrespect from him,” he says, “you disrespect my Mother? I told them, I warned him, his manager ‘don’t talk about my family’. I said they can say anything else, talk shit about me, say I am a cockroach, an ant. But once you cross that line, that barrier; fuck his manager Peter Kahn and fuck George Kambosos Jr.”
Lopez may be fired up, but he’s still grateful for Eddie Hearn and DAZN for making the fight a reality. “I’m thankful that DAZN has picked up this fight,” he says. “I’m thankful for Eddie Hearn and everyone that has played a role in this one. I’m in the zone and on DAZN. It’s a blessing to be here but it’s time to start putting people in their place, and time that they sit down and be humble. I’ve been humbled and I am humble. There comes a point that you just have to smack these guys.”