Josh Taylor Continues to Cut Teofimo Lopez No Slack
On November 6, following a rather intriguing prizefight, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez defeated Caleb Plant to become the undisputed super middleweight champion of the world. Being the polarizing force that he is in the sport, the meaningful and historic dustup acquired a substantial amount of attention from the boxing public, athletes and celebrities at large. Among those captivated by the festivities was WBA super, WBO and IBF lightweight champion Teofimo “Take Over” Lopez (16-0, 12 KO’s).
In the last days before the high stakes duel, Lopez would be seen lathering Canelo in high praise whilst conducting interviews. Despite it being a faulty claim, ever since Lopez beat Vasiliy Lomachenko and took his belts, he has been insisting that he is the ‘undisputed’ lightweight champion. This is erroneous as Devin Haney is the true owner of the WBC world lightweight title. Instead of the traditional belt, the Take Over lifted the WBC’s insipid “Franchise” belt off of Loma.
In fact, the WBC had to change their own rules in the ninth hour to even make it available to be won. When the “Franchise title” was initially created, it was not eligible to be lost in combat. It was meant to only be awarded to specific and popular fighters who petitioned directly to the WBC. Yet, seeing an opportunity to market the Lopez versus Lomachenko bout as one for ‘undisputed,’ the WBC trashed their own logic and regulations. Chaos and confusion has reigned ever since.
KEEP IT REAL!!
One person fully aware of this murky situation is Josh “The Tartan Tornado” Taylor (18-0, 13 KO’s). As fate would have it, Teofimo Lopez is currently in hot pursuit of a contract to face Taylor. This is mainly because the Tartan Tornado is a hot ticket item due to being the actual undisputed super lightweight champion of the world. Taylor took possession of all the belts when he beat Jose Carlos Ramirez by way of unanimous decision on May 22. For quite some time, Team Lopez has been making idle threats to move up in weight. Let them tell it, Taylor would be the perfect opponent to do so with.
Regrettably for the Take Over, Taylor wants nothing to do with the fight. The Tartan Tornado has been telling the press for months that he believes that Lopez should fight Haney before thinking about any other major fights. Believing that the Take Over is acting as a fraud, his comments on him have gotten increasingly curt. After seeing Lopez rubbing shoulders with Canelo, masquerading around like an undisputed champion, Taylor held nothing back on this social media feed.
STICK TO THE SCRIPT
There is little doubt that Lopez will see, and respond, to the slanderous post that Taylor put out for public consumption. The vexing part of it all however, is Lopez still will not admit that he is not the actual undisputed lightweight champion. And if we’re going by recorded history, Lopez will not sign-up to face Haney either. So more than likely we will be left stranded in this lightweight limbo where this very significant fight goes unrealized. This is truly a sad state of affairs.
In the end, it’s an outrageously frustrating situation, and something of an unfunny joke. Here it is Team Lopez refuses to shut up about being undisputed. Yet at the same time they can’t say that in any room with more than two people without the statement immediately being disputed! Then rather than dance with Haney to settle the matter, father and son alike just plunge themselves into nonsensical talking points, lies and rhetoric.
It’s the adult version of putting your fingers in your ears and loudly saying: “la, la, la, la” when someone says something you don’t like. If Lopez is destined to best George Kambosos in his next at-bat, let’s just hope that he is talking about Haney and not Taylor in the aftermath. That would be nice, but its’ probably not a smart bet to hold your breath.
By: Bakari Simpson
