YouTube
TEOFIMO LOPEZ, conqueror of Vasiliy Lomachenko and former lightweight king, has sunk to a new low. The outspoken 25-year-old – and his equally verbose father – have often rubbed people the wrong way with some of the things they’ve said, but Lopez has now crossed a line.
Speaking to a YouTube channel dubbed ‘Punsh Drunk Boxing’ – which appears to be run by fans with no discernible journalistic experience – Lopez complained about the commentary of some of his recent fights on ESPN. He claimed that the likes of Andre Ward and Timothy Bradley were biased against him, particularly during his loss to George Kambosos Jnr.
He then insisted that his upcoming clash with Josh Taylor will be his last dealing with the broadcaster, before inexplicably bringing race into the discussion.
“This is my last fight on ESPN… If they want the black fighters, they can keep them,” he said. The fine folks at Punsh Drunk Boxing made no attempt to have Lopez clarify his statement about black fighters, nor did they challenge him on it. What’s worse is that the YouTube channel later edited out this part of the interview with no explanation. But by that point the damage had been done; clips of Lopez making these remarks were already doing the rounds on social media.
If you’re being generous, Lopez’ remarks are ignorant to the point of being racially insensitive, but you could quite fairly accuse him of just being flat-out racist here. He is implying divisions within the same promotional company – in this instance Top Rank – based on a fighter’s race. When listening to Lopez make the comments, it’s hard to ignore the subtext that he resents the fact black fighters such as Devin Haney and Shakur Stevenson are receiving a significant push from Top Rank and ESPN.
Lopez made another comment during the same interview that caused concern. He explained how professional boxers can take someone else’s life in a boxing ring and “get away with it,” remarking that this is “cool.” It was chilling to hear him say this. What he means is that if a boxer dies as a result of a fight, the other boxer will not be prosecuted for their death (provided there’s no evidence to suggest they intentionally tried to kill or seriously injure them).
Lopez’s comments about black fighters could be explained away as miscommunication, but there is no such way to reframe this: he is clearly lauding the fact that he could take a life with no legal repercussions. Just as there was when Deontay Wilder spoke of wanting a “body” on his record, there should be outrage over Lopez’ comments. There should also be some sort of investigation into his mentality. While it may just have been a young fighter speaking before thinking, any credible boxing authority should know for sure that Lopez has no desire to kill someone before letting him anywhere near a boxing ring.
In an attempt to clear things up, Lopez’s father spoke to Mill City Boxing to try and explain what his son actually meant. It was a bit like sending Donald Trump to negotiate a hostage situation.
“A lot of people [are] going to try to put this s**t like he’s racist. Bro, my son-in-law is black. My daughter got married to a Black dude, bro. I love Black people. We all love Black people, we was [sic] raised with Black people. I lived in the projects. I don’t even got to explain myself [sic] because it’s stupid,” he said.
“[My son] understood that he was wrong with what he said. But it has nothing to do with race. It has nothing to do with that. You can’t mention the word ‘black’ nowadays because everybody gets offended. It’s a word that you cannot use.”
The classic ‘I can’t be racist because I have a friend who’s black’ argument doesn’t hold much water at the best of times, but it’s especially weak when you follow it up with complaints that people are merely just offended because you used the word ‘black.’ It seems both Lopez Jnr and Snr have a lot to learn.
Broadcasts
It was reported that the recent Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia fight did big, big business. BoxingScene claimed that the Showtime pay-per-view broadcast did roughly 1.2 million buys in the US, which blows the initial estimates out of the water. Those involved in the fight were apparently expecting anything between 450,000 and 750,000 buys.
The bout, which took place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, also generated an estimated $22.8 million in ticket sales, ranking it fifth in Nevada boxing history for that metric.
Those are seriously impressive numbers. And they speak to the value of having young, prominent fighters face each other. The event also saw several major companies (and competitors) working together. Too often fights don’t happen because agreements can’t be reached between rival broadcasters or promoters, but here we have a perfect example of how much success can be had when there is cooperation.
Websites
Anthony Joshua had previously stated that, after beating Jermaine Franklin at the start of last month, his next fight would be in December. Joe Markowski, DAZN’s chief executive officer for North America, told BoxingScene that is “not consistent with what we’re planning.” He says discussions with Joshua are ongoing and that the British superstar could fight in the summer before an outing at the end of the year.
That’s encouraging for a number of reasons but the biggest one is that there is a very real chance ‘AJ’ will face Deontay Wilder in December. Promoter Eddie Hearn has reportedly been in the Middle East for meetings about staging that fight, which is stylistically one of the most exciting that can be made in the sport.
Boxing on the Box
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May 7
Canelo Alvarez-John Ryder
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Coverage begins at 12am
