Junior welterweight titlist Teofimo Lopez says he was offended by the paltry purse offered to him for a proposed fight with Ryan Garcia.
Lopez, the former unified lightweight champion from Brooklyn, New York, told reporters Saturday night in Las Vegas during the David Benavidez vs. Demetrius Andrade card that he had rejected an offer to face Garcia for a fight early next year because he would have been remunerated with a payday far below his worth.
Lopez said he was offered $1.5 million to fight Garcia but he was mum on details, such as who had brought him the deal, if it was via Top Rank, his promoter, or Garcia’s promoter, Golden Boy.
Oscar De La Hoya, the founder of Golden Boy, suggested last month that he was interested in making a fight between Garcia and Lopez for February, during Super Bowl weekend, an idea that Top Rank head Bob Arum also endorsed.
“When you’re the best, when you are the guy, when you bring major sponsors, endorsements, big major business deals, when you offer me a 1.5 [million dollars] stake in the piece—f–k you,” Lopez told Boxing News. “So yeah I declined the offer.”
Asked to clarify what his next steps are, Lopez offered a cryptic answer.
“What’s next for me is world wide takeover, that’s what’s next,” Lopez said. “I want to go to Italy, I want to take it to other places in different ways. I got a lot of fan base in Africa, too, I want to go out there. My whole thing is taking it global because nobody else is going to help me in the boxing game no more.”
Lopez (19-1, 13 KOs) recently told BoxingScene.com that he does not plan on fighting anytime soon, saying he “bring[s] too many demands and I don’t get nothin’ back.” In a social media post that went viral in the boxing world, Lopez said collecting garbage pays better than fighting.
Lopez’s enigmatic behavior comes on the heels of one of the best wins of his career: a dominant decision over Josh Taylor, in June, at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City, to earn Taylor’s WBO 140-pound title. Lopez silenced his critics, many of whom felt the troubled 26-year-old would crack during that fight. But immediately after defeating Taylor, Lopez caused another stir by insisting he would retire.
Garcia (23-1, 19 KOs), the 25-year-old star from Victorville, Calif., is set to make his 140-pound debut against Oscar Duarte next week at Toyota Center in Houston. He is coming off a high-profile loss to Gervonta Davis in April.
By Sean Nam