Teofimo Lopez Refers To Crawford and Tank as Monkeys
Once again, WBO junior welterweight champion Teofimo “The Takeover” Lopez (21-1, 13 KO’s) has revealed his apparent disdain for black fighters. Previously, Lopez aired his thoughts on how he believed his Top Rank promotional company extended favorable treatment to the black fighters. Now, in a brief Q&A with Broadway Joel, The Takeover used well known racist imagery when expressing interest in facing WBA super welterweight champion Terence “Bud” Crawford (41-0, 31 KO’s) and WBA lightweight champion Gervonta “Tank” Davis (30-0, 28 KO’s).
“Whichever monkey wants to get the banana! They say they are gorillas, I’m a lion, I eat them . . . that was a good one, whichever monkey wants the banana!”
If called on his crude and crass sound byte, there is little doubt that Lopez will, per usual, apologize and insist that he didn’t mean anything by it . Which would be rather disingenuous given he knew the connotations of the statement when he said it and began giggling about it. Unfortunately, there is more than likely not much that will come of this.
AND ANOTHER ONE
True enough, Tank Davis does enjoy referring to himself as a gorilla, so that can’t be denied. Yet, Crawford does not go around referring to himself in this manner. Regardless of how these two men use colorful terms to describe themselves, it is a very well known fact that calling or referencing black people as monkeys and apes is a longstanding racial insult here in the US. This dates back literally for hundreds of years.
Given how long this has been a staple for racists, and the amount of time that The Takeover professes he’s spent around black people, it’s virtually impossible for him to say he is unaware. Especially seeing how tickled he was with himself for saying it. Years ago, Sergey Kovalev got into hot water when he insinuated that Adonis Stevenson looked like a monkey. And Ryan Garcia went on a recent racial tirade that led to nothing of any substance.
NO PULL IN SIGHT
Over the past two years, in the eyes of many, Lopez’s stock has dropped a considerable margin. Outside of an impressive win over Josh Taylor on June 10, 2023, The Takeover received potential gift decisions over Sandor Martin and Jamaine Ortiz. And in his last duel, with Steve Claggett, he turned in an extremely lackluster performance.
Tank has never shown much realistic interest in facing The Takeover and Crawford is publicly chasing a fight with unified super middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. So naturally, in relation to these two, this leaves Lopez still twisting in the wind. Perhaps The Takeover is simply getting desperate for a big fight and is trying anything to get a reaction. For the time being though, we’ll just have to keep our eyes on the situation and see if there is any blowback for this distasteful and disappointing incident. But given boxing’s track record, nothing will.
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