Teofimo Lopez Has No Respect For Ryan Garcia’s Skills
When still housed in the same division, former unified lightweight champion Teofimo “Take Over” Lopez (16-1, 12 KO’s) versus Ryan “King Ry” Garcia (23-0, 19 KO’s) would have made for a tremendous fight. It was talked about at length but never manifested in reality.
Now, following his sole professional defeat at the hands of George Kambosos, Lopez is leaving the division. Rather than rematch Kambosos, or trying to re-establish himself at lightweight, Take Over is headed up to the super lightweight division where he is ranked #5 (WBO), #6 (WBC), #8 (WBA) and #10 (IBF).
Despite his upcoming duel with the relatively unknown fighter Pedro Campa, Lopez still feels that he is the crème of the crop. With this being the case, he is sure that he is still must see TV. To this end, Lopez insists that his show will be lousy with celebrities and important figures. In fact, as he told Fight Hype, Garcia is definitely still a person of interest on his radar.
“I invited him [Ryan Garcia] two weeks ago to my fight. I’ve been inviting a lot of people from across the board. It’s going to be a lot of stars that come out on Saturday night. I’m happy that I said that to him so that way he kept it in his mind and yeah, I’ll see him Saturday night.”
RENEGING AT ITS FINEST
In fitting fashion, however, Lopez had to inject the situation with a bit of contradiction. Previously, he openly acknowledged that no sanctioning body, but the WBC, recognized his “WBC Franchise” designation as being equivalent to actually being the WBC champion. This did not stop Lopez from endlessly, and fraudulently, calling himself the undisputed champion.
Following suit here, in nearly the same breath that he admitted to inviting Ryan Garcia to his fight, Lopez threw shade at him.
“Ryan Garcia, I mean, he’s just hype. He’s all happy because of his last performance so he think he can take on everybody. He feels like Superman but really he is his own kryptonite.”
With his own back to the wall there will be countless curious observers watching to see how Lopez handles himself on August 13. Will he return to form, collect a knockout then begin flipping around the ring like Take Over of old? Or will he stumble, if not flat out lose?
Remember, at one time he gave Kambosos less than a snowball’s chance in Hell to win their bout and we all saw how that turned out. Nothing in this world is guaranteed so first let’s make sure Lopez handles business with Campa before we start daydreaming about Take Over versus King Ry.
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By: Bakari Simpson
