Teofimo Lopez evidently wasn’t taking any chances.
The lightweight titleholder, believing his hometown of New York City would be hit hard by the coronavirus, moved with his family to Arkansas – where his wife has relatives – to ride out the worst of the pandemic, according to TMZ.
Lopez felt he had no choice to but to relocate because he has asthma, which makes him susceptible to the worst symptoms of the disease.
As of Saturday, 131,263 had tested positive for the coronavirus and 8,893 had died from it.
“You ever seen those movies like ‘2012’? Obviously the major cities are always gonna get hit first,” he said. “… “Me and my wife, we took our 3 dogs with us. We pretty much just left. Man, honestly, we were lucky. We left two or three days before it got hit hard.
“And, ya know we had to, due to my health condition. I have asthma. Not a lot of people know about it. I’ve been diagnosed with is since I was 6 years old. I know coronavirus, COVID-19, it hits the lungs. I just can’t risk it.”
Lopez was scheduled to fight fellow titlteholder Vasiliy Lomachenko on May 30 but the fight was postponed indefinitely because of the pandemic. Still, he says he’s staying in shape.
“I’m still working ou,” he said. “I been two weeks already just doing the treadmill, just running, and pretty much pumping weights. Hitting the bag. … I’m getting big!”
Lopez suggested Lomachenko, who is in Ukraine, follow his lead. He said, “Stay in shape, you fat f—!”