Ryan Garcia is making the first defence of his WBC welterweight title when he takes on Conor Benn next month, and two-division world champion Teofimo Lopez has shared his thoughts on the fight.
Lopez lost his WBO super-lightweight title to Shakur Stevenson in January and revealed plans to move up to welterweight soon after. On Saturday, he makes his debut in the new division, challenging Rolando Romero for the WBA welterweight crown.
Should he be successful, Lopez is hoping to secure a unification bout against the winner of Garcia-Benn in the outing that follows, but whilst ‘The Takeover’ recognised Benn’s chances in the showdown, he told Fight Hub TV why he would prefer ‘King Ry’ to triumph.
“I think that Conor Benn has a great chance of winning and pulling an upset. He wants it more. He may not have the skills, but look what people said about Rolly and Rolly wanted it more, and he beat Ryan Garcia.
“Anything is possible, it all depends how bad you want it. Another thing is that I feel like Conor Benn has had more rugged fights, more tougher fights.
“The only thing that makes me step back is, I don’t know if it is true and if it came from his own mouth, but him saying that this is his only fight at 147lbs. So, I got to go with Ryan.”
“Where does that go for the WBC, does it become vacant? Then I have got to talk to Mauricio Sulaiman and see how we can make things work, it is just a longer process.”
As Lopez mentioned, Benn has indeed stated that this will be his final contest as a welterweight, leading to doubts as to whether he will be able to perform at his best when he collides with Garcia on Saturday, September 12.
