Teofimo Lopez Sr has spoken out after his son was dominated and beaten by Shakur Stevenson on Saturday night.
Stevenson put on a seriously impressive display against Lopez to capture the WBO super-lightweight world title and become the fastest four-weight world champion in boxing history.
Lopez struggled to match the tempo and output set by his countryman on the night and ultimately fell short, suffering the second defeat of his career via wide unanimous decision.
Lopez’s father, Teofimo Sr, had found himself at the center of a number of bitter exchanges during fight week, including an altercation with former pound-for-pound superstar Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford, who had shown his support to Stevenson in the days leading up to fight night. He was also widely criticised on fight night for what people recognised as poor corner work.
Speaking to Seconds Out, Lopez Sr said the narrative of the build-up affected the performance.
“Congratulations to him for winning. But that was not my son in there. I think probably the networks and everybody, the media, everything leading up to this fight, you know, everybody talking already about Shakur fighting in May where the winner was supposed to go and fight in May, against whoever it was. I think that probably got to him.
He then addressed the pre-fight controversy that he was ‘drunk’ the night before the press conference.
“People talking about me being drunk, all that stuff you know, when he went to the press conference and I wasn’t there. I didn’t show up because I was resting, and I think all that affected him in this fight.”
The trainer offered little in terms of technical analysis, instead saying his son was mentally affected by ‘everybody wanting him to lose.’
“A lot of people say my son is mentally easy to mess with – how you gonna fight a fight when everybody wants you to lose? I don’t know what happened. It just looked like all his powers were not there. Everything that we planned, everything he did in sparring, everything that we planned to do was not there. His power was not there.
“I was in shock man and I think a lot of this has to do with everybody not wanting him to win. There wasn’t not one person talking good about him. So that has to stop, that has to stop. In this planet, in this world, that’s why we have this sport. The best man has to win and nobody knows who’s winning.”
Lopez is likely to take some time away from the sport before he makes his eventual return to the ring. Many will urge him to shake up his training team. As for Stevenson, the 28-year-old has called out Conor Benn for a welterweight fight.
