Lopez Sr. says no more Haney!
For many fight fans, it was wonderful news to hear that IBF world lightweight champion Teofimo “El Brooklyn” Lopez (15-0, 12 KO’s) should be back on schedule to face unified world lightweight champion Vasiliy “Hi-Tech” Lomachenko (14-1, 10 KO’s) this upcoming September.
Sadly, on the flip side of this news, El Brooklyn’s father, Teofimo Lopez Sr., insisted that if victorious, Team Lopez had zero intentions on staging a bout with WBC world lightweight champion Devin “The Dream” Haney (24-0, 15 KO’s). If this turns out to be the case, it would be doubly disappointing.
For one, El Brooklyn just went well out of his way to call out Haney through his InstaGram account. Secondly, provided Lopez topples Lomachenko, Haney would be the last belt holding champion in the division. So to have all the belts except for the actual WBC world lightweight title held by Haney, rather than Lomachenko’s confusing concept ‘Franchise’ belt, and not go for the last strap would be rather frustrating and puzzling.
THE DREAM’S NIGHTMARE
Whether Senior plans on sticking to these talking points or is just giving Haney a tough time in the press is still yet to be determined. However, at the moment, Lopez Sr. is not giving any indication that they will be looking to face The Dream now, later or ever. He told the following to EsNews:
“They are telling me that that WBC email belt that Devin Haney holds right now don’t mean squat! Nothing! Nada! I am so happy, we are going to make this happen. We are going to be undisputed and we are going to move on. And no more Devin Haney! No more all his crap about, ‘I am this, I am that.’ We’re going to unify the weight division, we are going to beat the man at 135 and move on to the 140 weight division and unify that weight division as well.” ~Teofimo Lopez Sr
ODD LOGIC
Provided Lopez defeats Loma and immediately goes up to the junior welterweight division, it will be awfully hard not to call this a duck. In fact, there are already people who feel as if El Brooklyn ducked Haney. Both men were part of a four-man tournament that most believed would end with The Dream and Lopez facing off in a high stakes prizefight.
However, before this came to be, Lopez withdrew from the tournament to pursue what he theorized to be a quicker road to a title fight. It’s also doubly strange that Senior is talking so tough about unifying the division and beating the top dog there. This is because ,just like Lopez, Lomachenko was also on a crash course to collide with Haney. Well, that was before Team Loma petitioned for, and was granted, the WBC’s concept Franchise belt.
Since the announcement of the Franchise belt, until this very day, its creation and existence has only caused confusion.
To begin, even the WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman himself admits that the trinket is not an actual championship belt. So it’s odd that Lopez Sr would be so gung-ho about acquiring a concept title and blatantly avoiding a major challenge for a potential second time. Not to mention, by sidestepping Haney, there would be no unification of the traditional belts, which would leave many enthusiasts with the wiggle room to argue Lopez was never undisputed.
NO IF’S, AND’S OR MAYBE’S HERE!!
When the dust settles, ideally this all will be revealed to be a healthy session of public ball-breaking. Lopez v Haney is just an all-around great fight, whether there are titles on the line or not. Furthermore, if El Brooklyn overcomes Loma and moves up to the 140lbs landscape without seeing The Dream, this will certainly put a blemish on his reputation for many throughout the industry. Unfortunately, at the moment, this is precisely how the stage is being set up.
“They say that we are ducking Devin Haney because we want to fight Lomachenko, are they freaking crazy!
…that kid hasn’t won anything, he hasn’t proven himself to win anything. Does he have potential? Maybe! But as of right now, he is a maybe person. Maybe he becomes world champion, maybe he can beat this guy. What the hell! You can’t win the lottery because maybe you almost won it right? Get out of here with this maybe stuff! You got to be proven and that kid has not beaten anybody and I am sick and tired of talking about this kid because we are giving him a lot of clout!” ~Teofimo Lopez Sr
By: Bakari Simpson
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