Teofimo Lopez is one of boxing’s brightest stars.
As a character, he divides opinion. As a fighter, he can blow hot and cold. But when he blows hot, he can be sensational.
Lopez will box Canada’s Steve Claggett on Saturday in Miami, and while Lopez has pressure on his shoulders, he welcomes it.
When he started out fighting, it wasn’t about the side effects of a successful career, it was only about being the best.
“I never did it for the fame,” the 26-year-old Lopez said. “I never did it for the popularity purpose of it. I did it just to be the best fighter in the world. As a young kid, I wanted to be the best fighter in the boxing game. That’s it. No. 1 of everything. And look at this: I’m only 26. The other guys that they’re rooting for, like [Naoya] Inoue, [Terence] Crawford and them, they’re on their way out or they’re in their 30s already. I’m a baby, and look how much I’ve done in the landscape.
“Two-time lineal world champion, and all this at 25. I got everything done faster and earlier than all of them, so whatever people want to say, they can go and do what they want with it. It’s just competition, and I look forward to being the best version of myself in this fight and moving forward to the next one. Whatever is planned for me in September – whatever is planned for me in December – you know we’re ready for it.”
Fame is a byproduct of success, but it adds to the strain. It doesn’t just equate to a loss of privacy but also a level of intrusion on social media and of permanently being accessible to trolls. For Lopez, he is content to carry that burden. In fact, he insists it is one he embraces.
“You’ve got to realize, everything has a price – everything,” he said. “When you become the best, obviously there’s people out there that’s going to recognize the best, so you have to understand. I don’t like to say that I’m famous. That’s something that I don’t like to do, because I don’t believe I’m famous.
“I just believe that I’m the best fighter in the world. That’s it. If you want to consider that as fame, then I don’t know what else to tell people. But this is what comes with it. You’ve got to understand that as upcoming fighters, as people that want to come up and be where they want to be, you’ve gotta understand this is what comes with it.
“You have to be prepared for every type of angle. You cannot just be the best and say, ‘I’m going to have peace in my life.’ No. You’re going to be the best and you’re going to have peace, but you’re going to have peace amongst the people. You have to learn how to orchestrate it the best way. It’s like music – like a violin – you have to know how to play your tunes, and that’s what it is. I give my time, whether it’s at boxing events, Top Rank or ESPN events. I give them my time. Even with outside promoters and different networks, I give my time to all people. Do you know why? Because they come and watch us fight. It’s the least that a person could do, is give back when they’ve paid to see us.
“I think that’s the true essence of humanity, it’s the true essence of the people’s champ and it’s the true essence of why Muhammad Ali was and is to this day the greatest of all time. He understood that, and I’m just someone that wants to bring that back.”
Despite career-defining victories over Vasiliy Lomachenko and Josh Taylor to top the 135- and 140-pound divisions, Lopez is in a position where the possibilities of dream matches are nearly endless. From 135 to 147, there is a who’s who of potential opponents, from Gervonta Davis to Liam Paro to Devin Haney to Shakur Stevenson and Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz.
None of the above, however, are on Lopez’s radar. His wish list is made up of just one fighter.
“I believe the only one I have left to cement my legacy in that degree and get that triple crown that I’m aiming for, and the reason why I came back to add even more to my legacy, is Terence Crawford [having earned all of the belts at 147],” he said.
“Terence Crawford is someone I definitely want to have on my resume and definitely want to show the world why I’m not just No. 1, but the best fighter that they’ve seen in a long time.”
But what of his contemporaries? What of the names in and around his weight that could cement his legacy and earn him further fortunes, such as Davis, Stevenson and Haney?
There is, in this era, the chance of a Four Kings-style round robin, and those fights have been possible for years, but Lopez has Crawford as a priority and desires nothing else of great significance after “Bud.”
As things stand, Lopez believes he is the active fighter who is doing his bit to bring back to life the ethos of the Four King – Marvin Hagler, Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns and Roberto Duran – and that it is down to the others to catch up to him.
“I think I’m the only one that stood on the Four Kings emblem,” Lopez said. “I believe I faced all lineal world champions and undisputed champions; they have yet to fight those type of fighters, despite the Haney and [Ryan] Garcia situation. Look how it flipped on them. So I can’t really say those guys are something that I’m angling for.
“I’m at the point where I’m on a different road from them. My path is so much different from them. You can tell with the accolades I’ve got so far. I could retire today and actually wait three to five years and be inducted into the Hall of Fame, so imagine that. Before even turning 30. At this point in time, my whole thing is, I love the sport too much to let it go like that, and I’m aiming north because that’s where I’m headed.
“I believe the 140-pound division, they have their agenda with these fighters, and I’m not gonna say I’m going up to 147 right away. I’m just saying if we don’t get these unification bouts because of whatever reason that these promoters are doing with their fighters …
“They want to be safe with them because it is a gamble when you face Teofimo. Come on, look at it. Every time we face someone that actually comes and has a style, that doesn’t come to run, that actually comes to compete, we do our absolute best. And that’s what boxing’s all about. That’s what I believe fighting’s all about. You can’t say that you’re ready to fight someone and when you get hit by Teofimo, you just start running away. And people are so hard on me on that, but I’m hard on myself in those things, that I even asked former world champions, people from the ‘90s and ‘80s, people that were in the Olympics, like Roy Jones. I asked Antonio Tarver. I asked Roberto Duran. I asked a lot of them, and they told me, ‘It’s not your fault that this guy Jamaine Ortiz fought the way he did.’
“It’s a really difficult task to stop a guy that doesn’t stop to engage. Whether the pressure’s on me or not, I like it. This is what comes with it. It’s something I told myself would happen eventually one day, and today’s that time.”
Lopez speaks from a place of unadulterated self-confidence. He can be divisive, but he can be magnetic. Fighters today are judged harshly. Look poor one fight and they’re overhyped. Get dropped once and they’re chinny. Fail to adjust to a style and they can’t adapt. Anything less than sensational every time is rarely understood, and it surely is not appreciated.
When Lopez toiled against Ortiz in February, the momentum was shorted. However impressive he had been against Taylor last year, it didn’t matter. Lopez was as good as his past fight and his past fight only. Of course, he views his own career through a different prism and is still at a loss to explain why his performance versus Ortiz was so negative against him.
“Who knows – they could have done a lot of things to this kid?” he said, pondering the reason. “Maybe it’s just my power. We all expected the same guy that fought Lomachenko to face us. I believe everyone expected that. You know, even the matchmakers. They don’t put these type of fights – like [Top Rank’s Hall of Fame matchmakers] Bruce Trampler and Brad Goodman – they don’t put these type of fighters with me without expecting a great show and a great outing, and they’ve done it through my whole career.
“With this being said, was it a shocker? Yeah. Did it slow things down? I can’t really say, because we’re almost sold out in this arena [in Florida] and people want to see me fight.
“You can’t really say it slowed it down, but for all the people that know boxing, the guy didn’t want to come to fight. Maybe that was his game plan – to make me look bad. Not to win, but just to make me look bad. And if that was the case, they got it done somewhat – but not all of it.”
A commanding win over Steve Claggett on Saturday, and one of boxing’s brightest stars will be shining brightly again.