Teofimo Lopez‘s manager Keith Connolly has revealed that he is legally pursuing an opportunity for the newly-crowned WBA champion to circumvent his mandatory duty.
‘The Takeover’ claimed his belt with a majority decision victory over Rolando Romero, dethroning his countryman to become a three-division world champion last weekend.
For the most part, Lopez was in full control, other than when he was badly hurt by an overhand right in round five of their Las Vegas encounter.
Rather impressively, though, the American made a swift recovery and remained the busier fighter, returning to the win column after suffering a wide points defeat to Shakur Stevenson in January.
Now campaigning at 147lbs, Lopez has since expressed his interest in unification matches with Devin Haney, Liam Paro or the winner of Ryan Garcia vs Conor Benn, which takes place at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena on September 12.
At the same time, however, WBA ‘regular’ champion Jack Catterall is demanding his shot at the full title, having been promised by sanctioning body president Gilberto Mendoza that he would secure this opportunity within 180 days of his last outing.
Manager Connolly has therefore told Ring Magazine that he is attempting to leverage Lopez’ ‘super’ status and swerve a mandatory title defence against Catterall.
“I have my legal team, and Teo’s legal team, working on that right now. I don’t wanna say too much publicly, but some people on the other side were saying that we agreed to [the 180-day ruling].
“We didn’t agree to that – we were never given a contract to sign, saying that we would fight Jack Catterall next.
“We’ll talk to the WBA. We are the super champion, which comes with more privileges than being a regular champion. So, if we go out [and secure] a mega fight or unification, I think we have the right to do that. But let’s see how things play out.”
With Catterall unanimously outpointing Shakhram Giyasov for his regular title in May, the proposed deadline of November 19 – which seems unrealistic, even if Lopez is commanded to face his mandatory challenger – is now just weeks away.
