Teofimo López rejects top-tier offer for Matias Fight

Teofimo Lopez turned down his promoters’ final offer at Top Rank to defend his title against Subriel Matias on March 15 on ESPN PPV in Las Vegas.

According to Keith Idec, Top Rank’s offer to WBO light welterweight champion Teofimo (21-1, 13 KOs) for the match against former IBF 140-pound belt holder Matias (21- 2, 21 KOs) was above his “contract minimum.” Teo remains intractable, his worst enemy, as his career sinks to the bottom.

It’s unclear what kind of money Lopez, 27, was expecting for the Matias fight, but whatever it was, Top Rank wasn’t offering it. This would have been risky for Teo because he has not performed well in the last four years. Teo has sounded and looked like a complete basket case since 2021.

Lopez, a native of Brooklyn, New York, has always fought pressure fighters throughout his nine-year professional career, and he could have fallen short against the tough Matias.

Subriel’s power would have been 100% pure hell for Teofimo, and he could have mentally shattered as he did in his 12-round split decision loss to George Kambosos Jr. in 2021.

Are Lopez’s demands too high?

“Teofimo Lopez turned down Top Rank’s final offer, ‘way above his minimum contract’ I’m told, before last night’s deadline for a 140-pound title fight from WBO vs. Subriel Matias. Lopez and Matias would have fought in an ESPN PPV main event on March 15 in Las Vegas,” Keith Idec told X.

Top Rank must have been worried about Lopez’s recent fight against fellow fighter Steve Claggett (39-8-2, 22 KOs) last year on June 29. Teofimo absorbed a lot of punishment from Claggett, and ended up with a very swollen face in the process to win a tougher-than-expected 12-round unanimous decision.

Top Rank is believed to have fed Claggett’s opponent Teo as a confidence booster following his controversial win over Jamaine Ortiz in their previous fight on February 8 last year.

Many boxing fans believe that the judges gave Teofimo a free decision in that fight, and felt that Jamaine was robbed. I watched the fight and had Ortiz winning 9-3, and it wasn’t even close. He dominated Lopez even more than Kambosos.

Some believe Teofimo’s career highlight, a narrow 12-round majority decision over Vasily Lomachenko in November 2020, ruined him as a fighter, leaving him a struggling fighter, unable to fight at the levels he had shown before. Lomachenko did something to Teo, and he’s been mediocre ever since. What did Loma do to him in that fight to make him what he has become?