By Elliot Worsell
TO expect perfection in a sport like boxing, a sport enhanced by its very imperfections, would be both naïve and idealistic in the extreme. Consistency, however, is something far more attainable and something we all look for when sitting down to watch a fight. Fighters look for it in their performances, coaches demand it of their fighters, and fans, meanwhile, want to see consistency from pretty much everyone involved: the fighters, the referee, the judges, the commentators.
To some, consistency is considered boring and predictable, whereas for others it is the goal. For someone like Teofimo Lopez, for example, all he really wants is consistency, both from himself and from his opponents, and yet, conversely, what makes Lopez’s fights so compelling is the very inconsistency he brings to the ring each time.
That is to say for every Lopez vs. Richard Commey or Lopez vs. Vasiliy Lomachenko or Lopez vs. Josh Taylor you are also in danger of getting a Lopez vs. Masayoshi Nakatani or a Lopez vs. Sandor Martin or a Lopez vs. Jamaine Ortiz. Chances are Lopez himself doesn’t know which version of Teofimo Lopez will turn up on the night, which in turn makes the job of predicting his fights more difficult than usual yet the appeal of watching them greater than usual.
There are more variables with Lopez, 20-1 (13), than most it would seem. For one, he appears equipped to excel against only a specific type of opponent and style and therefore struggles whenever this style is not the style brought to the ring on fight night. Moreover, a lot of what makes Lopez such an engaging and fascinating character, as well as a maverick in the ring, is his temperament, which nobody would ever dare to call either calm or level-headed. Indeed, it is this temperament that allows Lopez to at times do the unthinkable and believe in himself when others have written him off, and it is also this temperament, this most unreliable of friends, that leads him into trouble when the call is for a head both calm and level.
At 26, and having found relative fame at an early age, this should probably come as no surprise. Lopez, after all, is not the first ambitious young prizefighter to feel like a ticking time bomb whenever he puts on a pair of gloves and boxing boots. This, in many ways, is a story as old as time, with consistency, both of performance and personality, something a boxer tends to find only in their later years, often when it is too late.
Lopez, perhaps, is just a continuation of this trend; meaning he will win fights he isn’t supposed to win on account of his outrageous natural ability, and he will then lose fights he isn’t supposed to lose on account of his inability to balance his physical gifts with the mental stability required for consistency.
Ask the fighter himself, of course, and he will no doubt tell you such accusations – of inconsistency, of flattering to deceive – are harsh in the extreme. He will say, in defence of himself, that fights against the likes of Ortiz and Martin are not ideal for him and that it takes two for a fight to break out. Last night, for instance, in what was a rather peculiar but in some ways typical Lopez rant, he said: “We cannot for one second claim that these fighters who don’t want to come and fight… You go to blood sweat and tears. The three codes of conduct. The Sugar Ray Robinson award. If you ain’t ready for this life, get the f**k out of my sport. I am a champion. I bleed for this. I sweat for this and I cry for this every time.”
There is certainly some truth to what Lopez suggested here; frankly, Ortiz came to win a decision (which many feel he deserved) rather than fight in the truest sense of the word. However, Lopez, by virtue of holding a belt at super-lightweight, must know that he is both a target for numerous 140-pound fighters and that the opponents targeting him will not always bring to him the style he wants them to bring. Not only that, with the cat out the bag so to speak, most fighters who prepare to fight Lopez these days will by now know that the best way to unsettle him and reveal his inconsistency is to deliver him the unexpected; the unwanted; everything he hates.
