Teofimo Lopez has criticised his father for showing a lack of competence during his unanimous decision defeat to Shakur Stevenson.
‘The Takeover’ was handily outboxed and dethroned by Stevenson in January, winning just one round as his opponent became a four-division world champion at 140lbs.
As a result, Lopez is now moving up to 147lbs in an attempt to reinvent himself and become a three-weight world champion against Rolando Romero.
But while he felt a change in weight was most certainly needed, the 29-year-old saw no reason to dismiss his father, Teofimo Sr, as his head coach.
This is in spite of the fact that Lopez Sr was heavily ridiculed for his efforts in the corner at Madison Square Garden, where Stevenson’s route to victory was only made clearer by his bizarre style of coaching.
Rather than offering his son any words of advice, he just simply pointed out his flaws and gave the defending champion no direction on how to improve.
Lopez therefore confronted his father while speaking with Ring Magazine, albeit with no threats of employing a different trainer.
“Every son wants to make their father proud. When you got your father in that moment – when you’re bleeding; when they’re allowing Shakur to do all these extra things … and your trainer is not going you instructions – they’re just talking you down: ‘Where’s your power? Where’s this? You’re gonna hate yourself’ – all roads lead to [defeat].”
As he takes on WBA champion Romero at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena on Saturday, it should be interesting to see how Lopez’s corner shapes up between rounds.
In any event, the American will be under a fair amount of pressure to produce an improved performance.
