Teofimo Lopez lost his WBO super-lightweight title to Shakur Stevenson on Saturday.
The pair were squaring off at Madison Square Garden in New York, with Stevenson putting in another world class performance to earn a dominant unanimous decision win and become a four-weight world champion in the process.
Lopez struggled to cope with anything that Stevenson threw at him over the course of 12 rounds, and father and trainer Teofimo Sr has revealed exactly why he thinks that was the case.
Speaking to Seconds Out, Lopez Sr explained that he was happy with how things went in their training camp, but he didn’t feel his son followed the correct game plan, and that talk on a potential future fight affected his thinking.
“Everything was fine, the sparring sessions were what motivated me to this fight, I was 100% sure we were going to win. For some reason the game plan my son didn’t do what I told him what I told him he was supposed to do. His rhythm was supposed to be different where we were supposed to stop Shakur from doing whatever he does best.
“Congratulations to him for winning but that wasn’t my son in there. I think the networks and everybody, the media, everything leading up to this fight and talking about the winner fighting in May, I think that probably got to him.”
Lopez has now announced that he plans to move up in weight to 147lbs following the loss to Stevenson, where he will attempt to become a three-division world champion.
