Reasons Teofimo Lopez rejects high-ranking offer for Matias Fight

Teofimo Lopez has reportedly rejected his promoters’ final offer to Top Rank to defend his title against Subriel Matias on March 15 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 fight against former IBF 140-pound belt holder Matias (21-2, 21 KOs) was above his “contractual minimum”. ” Teo remains intractable, his own worst enemy, as his career spirals downward.

It’s unclear what kind of money Lopez, 27, was expecting for the bout with Matias, but whatever it was, Top Rank wasn’t offering it. It would have been risky for Teo because he hasn’t done well in the last four years. Teo sounds and looks like a complete basket case from 2021.

Lopez, a native of Brooklyn, New York, has ALWAYS struggled against pressured fighters throughout his nine-year pro career, and he may have fallen apart against the heavyweight Matias.

Subriel’s power would have been 100% pure hell for Teofimo, and he could have mentally crumbled as he did in his 12-round split decision loss to George Kambosos Jr. in 2021.

Are Lopez’s demands too high?

“Teofimo Lopez rejected Top Rank’s final offer, “way above the contract minimum,” I was told, before the deadline late last night for a WBO 140-pound title bout against Subriel Matias . Lopez and Matias were scheduled to fight in an ESPN PPV main event on March 15 in Las Vegas,” Keith Idec said on X.

Top Rank must have been troubled by Lopez’s recent fight against Steve Claggett (39-8-2, 22 KOs) last year on June 29th. Teofimo absorbed a lot of punishment from Claggett, finding himself with a severely swollen face as he won a tougher-than-expected 12-round unanimous decision.

Top Rank is believed to have given Teo the Claggett opponent as a confidence booster following his controversial victory over Jamaine Ortiz in his previous bout on February 8 last year.

Many boxing fans believe that the judges gave Teofimo a gift decision in that fight and felt that Jamaine was robbed. I watched the fight and saw Ortiz win 9-3, and it wasn’t even close. He dominated Lopez even more than Kambosos had.

Some believe that the high point of Teofimo’s career, a 12-round narrow majority decision over Vasily Lomachenko in November 2020, ruined him as a fighter, leaving him a struggling fighter, unable to fight at the levels he had previously displayed . Lomachenko did something to Teo and has been mediocre ever since. What did Loma do to him in the struggle to transform him into what he became?