Teofimo Lopez reportedly rejected the final offer from his promoters at Top Rank to defend his title against Subriel Matias on March 15th on ESPN PPV in Las Vegas.
According to Keith Idec, Top Rank’s offer to WBO light welterweight champion Teofimo (21-1, 13 KOs) for the match against former IBF 140-lb belt-holder Matias (21-2, 21 KOs) was above his “contract minimum.” Teo remains intractable, his own worst enemy, as his career nosedives to the bottom.
It’s unclear what kind of money Lopez, 27, expected for the Matias fight, but whatever it was, Top Rank wasn’t offering it. That would have been a risky one for Teo because he’s not performed well over the last four years. Teo has sounded and looked like a complete basket case since 2021.
The Brooklyn, New York native Lopez has ALWAYS struggled against pressure fighters throughout his nine-year pro career, and he might have fallen apart against the heavy-handed Matias.
Subriel’s power would have been pure 100% hell for Teofimo, and he might have mentally crumbled as he did in his 12-round split decision loss to George Kambosos Jr. in 2021.
Lopez’s Demands Too High?
“Teofimo Lopez turned down Top Rank’s final offer, “way above his contract minimum,” according to what I was told, before a deadline late last night for a WBO 140-pound title fight vs. Subriel Matias. Lopez & Matias would’ve fought in an ESPN PPV main event March 15th in Las Vegas,” said Keith Idec on X.
Top Rank had to have been troubled by Lopez’s recent fight against journeyman Steve Claggett (39-8-2, 22 KOs) last year on June 29th. Teofimo absorbed a lot of punishment from Claggett, winding up with a badly swollen face in the process of winning a tougher-than-expected 12-round unanimous decision.
It’s believed that Top Rank had fed Teo the Claggett opponent as a confidence booster after his controversial win over Jamaine Ortiz in his previous fight on February 8th last year.
Many boxing fans believe that the judges gave Teofimo a gift decision in that fight, and they felt that Jamaine was robbed. I watched the fight and had Ortiz winning 9-3, and it wasn’t even remotely close. He dominated Lopez even more so than Kambosos had.
Some believe that Teofimo’s high point of his career, a narrow 12-round majority decision over Vasily Lomachenko in November 2020, ruined him as a fighter, leaving him a struggling fighter, incapable of fighting at the levels he’d shown earlier. Lomachenko did something to Teo, and he’s been mediocre ever since. What did Loma do to him in that fight to turn him into what he’s become?