In the immediate aftermath of George Kambosos Jr’s stunning upset over Teofimo Lopez to become unified lightweight champion, Teofimo Lopez Sr sat down with Radio Rahim to give his impression of what transpired and why he’s convinced that son fell victim to industry politics. Prepare yourselves for some hardcore denial, folks.
On what it felt like taking their first professional defeat in such unexpected fashion
“Listen, man. You saw me in every round jumping up and down and telling my son ‘you got that, you got that.’ You can’t win a fight if you’re not staying busy. My son was touching him every second, it’s just the way it is. You know, I’m saying he was coming up too fast, too strong, making a lot of noise and things happen. Things happen, you know. But we’re strong, (Teofimo’s) the people’s champ so we’re gonna be selling out arenas. This didn’t hurt us at all, it just made us better. The whole world knows about this, the whole world’s gonna be talking about this for weeks.
“Everybody knows (Teofimo) won that fight. Everybody knows that. I had it 10-2, 9-3. Everybody was just upset, they booed the decision in the Madison Square Garden so we just got to keep on living and do big fights and selling out arenas like we did tonight. We sold out the Madison Square Garden on the vaccination time, when you gotta be vaccinated to get inside. So at the end of the night the whole arena was upset at what happened and I don’t blame my son for nothing.
“We been at this weight for eight years, at 135, and it’s time to move up. It’s time to go up to 140 and this bullshit — ‘cause it’s a bullshit loss, I should’ve never fought with DAZN, I should’ve stood with Top Rank ‘cause those are the people that really love us. And You learn from your mistakes. So we go back with Top Rank and two PPV fights next year. Everybody knows what happened, okay.”
On if they intend to seek out a rematch with Kambosos
“No rematch, man. My mistake was leaving my son at 135 so long because in this game you gotta knock everybody out. If you don’t knock everybody out, this is what happens. It was a complete robbery, we dictated the fight from the beginning, aggressively, taking all those points. Everybody in the world knows what happened, everybody’s saying he won 9-3, 10-2, the whole arena saw it and it was just disgusting. I could not believe what they just did to us. But you know what, they just stained us.”
On where they’ll be looking to fight next
“We’re gonna go up to 140, get a fight in February, and then fight Josh Taylor in the spring time. We’re still gonna do what we said we’re gonna do. This doesn’t change anything. I don’t believe in just decisions because they can be compromised the same way they compromised us in the Olympics. Everything can be bought, that’s why I teach my boy ‘you gotta take them out.’ If you don’t take them out they could do something to us.
“I’m happy, he’s happy, we’re all happy — you know why, because he’s the people’s champ.
“I think he did a great job tonight. Every round I was happy, I was motivating him and I would go inside and say ‘you got that one.’ To me he won unanimous but you can put it at 10-2, 9-3 because of the knockdown. And he just slipped, it was like a flash knockdown. There’s no way this kid beat us.
“We’re gonna move onto bigger and better things, better fights, and this is not gonna stain my son. It’s gonna stain him because now we can’t say we’re better than Floyd Mayweather because now Floyd’s gonna say ‘we got that loss.’ And listen, it doesn’t really matter because he’s the people’s champ, everybody’s gonna fill out the arenas for him and that’s all I’m concerned about.
“The people know who won tonight and it doesn’t matter what the judges said, we won tonight.”
On what lesson they’ve taken from this defeat
“Number one lesson is don’t fuck with the industry because the industry could hurt you. I’m told him a lot, ‘from now on we’re just gonna stay quiet and not mention no names.’ We’re just gonna keep on doing what we’re doing. My son is still the best on the planet and I told everybody. We didn’t get knocked out, we was never hurt in the fight, we brought it back to this guy and everybody knows — Madison Square Garden was booing this, man.
“I taught him to win every round by touching every two seconds. Every two seconds he was touching him. There’s no way in the points system this guy won a freakin’ round. And that’s just the way it is. We don’t gotta perfect nothing or nothing, he just been at 135 too long.
“It’s time for us to move up so he can be stronger and dead all these people because from now on he’s gonna knock everybody out.”