Teofimo Lopez’s victory over Vasiliy Lomachenko on Oct. 17, 2020, which seems so long ago, remains the signature victory over his career. But his win over Josh Taylor at Madison Square Garden in New York on June 10 was equally significant.
Despite incredible turmoil surrounding him before the fight, Lopez boxed beautifully, dominated Taylor and lifted the WBO championship from him.
Neither Lomachenko nor Taylor were undisputed champions, technically at least, when they fought Lopez. For all intents and purposes, though, they were.
Lopez was the IBF lightweight champion in 2020 when he challenged Lomachenko at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Lomachenko was the WBA-WBO champion, though he’d won the WBC title in the ring and had never lost it. But through the policies and idiosyncrasies of sanctioning body politics, Lomachenko was a “franchise” champion in the WBC not the regular champion. So even though Lopez held the IBF title and beat the guy who won the WBA, WBC and WBO belts without having ever lost them, he wasn’t recognized by many as the undisputed lightweight champion.
It’s just common sense, though: To be the man, you’ve got to beat the man. Lopez beat the man and should have been regarded as the undisputed lightweight champion.
His career took twists and turns and finally led him to a bout with Taylor in New York earlier this month. Taylor won the undisputed title in the ring with Jose Ramirez, but after a so-so performance against Jack Catterall, he voluntarily gave up three of the four belts, keeping only the WBO title.
Given, though, that he’d never lost the belt in the ring — until meeting Lopez, that is — he was still technically the undisputed champion.
And so when Lopez routed him, despite two of the ridiculous scorecards that had it only 115-113 for Lopez, Lopez then became the de facto undisputed super lightweight champion.
That historic achievement and brilliant performance under very adverse circumstances were enough to earn him a spot at No. 10 in the Yahoo Sports pound-for-pound list, replacing unified super bantamweight champion Stephen Fulton.
There’s always a but, though, and there is a big one here. Lopez announced his retirement two days after the fight and went so far as to surrender the WBO belt.
He won’t turn 26 until July 30 and he’s in the prime of his career. Boxers announce they’re retiring all the time and with Lopez, who is in the middle of a divorce, a custody fight for his son and is struggling to deal with his father’s oft-overwhelming personality, outside the ring issues likely forced him to make that call.
I was going to rank him anyway, but he not only said he was retiring, he surrendered the belt he’d just won.
So it’s not fair to Fulton, a brilliant fighter in his own right who next month faces Naoya Inoue for the undisputed 122-pound title, to drop him from the rankings and replace him with a guy who says he’s retired.
So Fulton remains, Lopez isn’t ranked and we’ll deal with what happens next when it occurs.
Somehow, though, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Teofimo Lopez in a boxing ring.
Boxing pound-for-pound rankings as of June 20
1. Terence Crawford (39-0, 30 KOs), WBO welterweight champion. Previous Ranking: 1
2. Naoya Inoue (24-0, 21 KOs), Undisputed bantamweight champion. Previous Ranking: 2
3. Oleksandr Usyk (20-0, 13 KOs), IBF-WBA-WBO heavyweight champion. Previous Ranking: 3
4. Shakur Stevenson (19-0, 9 KOs), Lightweight contender. Previous Ranking: 4
5. Gervonta Davis (29-0, 27 KOs) Secondary WBA lightweight champion. Previous Ranking: 5
6. Canelo Alvarez (58-2-2, 39 KOs), Undisputed super middleweight champion. Previous Ranking: 6
7. Tyson Fury (33-0-1, 24 KOs), WBC heavyweight champion. Previous Ranking: 7
8. Dmitry Bivol (21-0, 11 KOs), WBA light heavyweight champion. Previous Ranking: 8
9. Artur Beterbiev (19-0, 19 KOs), IBF-WBC-WBO light heavyweight champion. Previous Ranking: 9
10. Stephen Fulton (21-0, 8 KOs), WBC-WBO super bantamweight champion. Previous Ranking: 10