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Mike CoppingerESPN
Teofimo Lopez and George Kambosos have signed contracts for an undisputed lightweight title fight that will take place Oct. 4 at New York’s Hulu Theater at MSG, Triller COO Thorsten Meier told ESPN.
The fight was set for Oct. 5 but Triller moved the fight to avoid competing with a potential wild-card playoff game between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox in New York. If the MLB season ended today, that game would take place Oct. 5.
“We want to make sure the sporting fans can see both amazing events,” Meier said.
Lopez-Kambosos will be the rare Monday evening boxing match in a sport that usually — with rare exception — holds its notable events on Saturday. It’s yet another date change for the seemingly snakebitten event.
Triller won the rights to the fight at a February purse bid with $6.018 million. The fight was planned for June 5 before it was officially set for June 19 in Miami. In the days leading up to the bout, Lopez tested positive for COVID-19.
Triller announced a rescheduled date of Aug. 14 before it looked to stage the fight on Oct. 17 in Sydney, Australia. Lopez balked at the government-mandated 14-day quarantine, leading to a legal battle. The IBF ultimately ruled the fight couldn’t take place in a location that requires quarantine.
The bout between Lopez, a 24-year-old Brooklyn native, and Kambosos, a 28-year-old Australian, was then planned for Oct. 5.
Lopez (16-0, 12 KOs) is ESPN’s No. 1 lightweight and No. 5 pound-for-pound fighter. He won the undisputed championship in October with a unanimous-decision victory over Vasiliy Lomachenko.
Kambosos (19-0, 10 KOs), ESPN’s No. 9 lightweight, earned the title shot with a split-decision win over Lee Selby later that month.