By: Hans Themistode
Since suffering defeat at the hands of Teofimo Lopez, Vasyl Lomachenko has done everything in his power to get his rival back in the ring.
The two squared off in mid-October, 2020, with three of the four major lightweight world titles on the line. Heading in, Lomachenko was considered the consensus best pound-for-pound boxer in the world and was expected to deal with Lopez with relative ease.
But, after a slow start, Lopez grabbed an insurmountable lead before winning a unanimous decision victory.
Since then, the Ukrainian has hunted down past opponents of Lopez in an attempt to defeat them in more devastating fashion. After stopping Masayoshi Nakatani in the ninth round this past June, an opponent who gave Lopez major issues before eking out a close win in 2019, Lomachenko is rumored to be on track to take on another former Lopez opponent. This time, in Richard Commey.
While Lomachenko is hoping to pick up another win, Lopez isn’t impressed with his former rival facing his hand-me-downs.
“He’s just trying to fight my leftovers,” said Lopez during an interview with Sky Sports Boxing. “He’s trying to come back and redeem himself.”
Although Lopez doesn’t seem all that impressed, Bob Arum, promoter of Lomachenko and Lopez, was pleased with the Ukrainian’s stoppage win over Nakatani. So much so in fact, that Arum is planning to put them back in the ring against one another in the near future.
“We’ll figure it out,” said Arum following Lomachenko’s win. “I think a rematch between Loma and Teofimo on pay-per-view does a lot of business.”
Before a rematch between the two can take place, Lopez still has business to attend to. The unified lightweight titlist is set to take on mandatory challenger, George Kambosos Jr. on October 5th, at the Hulu Theater in New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
Provided he wins, Arum would love nothing more than to begin engineering part two. But while the long-time promoter is salivating over the amount of money that can be made and despite fans around the world wanting to see them run things back once more, Lopez has emphatically rejected the idea that he’ll ever face Lomachenko again.
“It’s kinda cute how everyone thinks he’s going to get me again,” said Lopez. “I’m moving forward, we’re past that. Now we’re looking at bigger and better things like [Josh] Taylor. There’s no rematch. Had I lost, they would’ve never gave me the opportunity at all. Why do I have to give it to them? I’m not doing that.”