Teofimo Lopez wasn’t impressed with the great Vasiliy Lomachenko on Saturday in Las Vegas.
Lopez dominated the first half of the fight – winning the first six rounds on all three cards – and then fought off a rally from Lomachenko to win a unanimous decision and all four of the lightweight titles at only 23 years old inside the MGM Grand “bubble”.
Lomachenko threw an average of only 9.7 punches per round in the first six rounds, all of which he lost on all three cards. He hadn’t fought for 14 months. And one could argue he didn’t fight until Round 7 on Saturday.
“I expected more,” Lopez said at the post-fight news conference. “A lot of people were talking highly about him and I expected more, but [he was] basic. He was pretty basic, honestly, overall.
“Maybe it was a 14-month layoff that did it. I don’t know. I mean … I had a 10-month layoff, so why does it matter?”
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Lomachenko (14-2, 10 KOs) picked up his punch rate in the second half of the fight, which allowed him to win several rounds on two cards and make the fight interesting.
Lopez (16-0, 12 KOs) not only maintained his composure in the face of Lomachenko’s momentum , he made a statement by dominating the pound-for-pound king in the 12th and final round. He won 116-112, 119-109 and 117-111. Boxing Junkie scored it 116-112 for the winner.
Nothing Lopez did surprised him.
“We talked the talk and we walked the walk,” he said. “That’s what I do, man. My father [and trainer] just doesn’t talk s— just to talk s—. He believes in my abilities. I’m smart when I’m in there, you know, and I peeped a lot of things.
“But, you know, facing someone like that and doing what I did, you guys haven’t seen anything yet.”
What will we see next?
Well, one thing seems certain: It won’t be a rematch with Lomachenko even if he asks for one. There was no rematch clause in the contract, and Lopez doesn’t see the point of having one.
“For what? For what?,” Lopez said. “I beat him, and I did everything that I had to to beat him. If anything, it’ll happen again, the same thing. There was no rematch clause for a reason. Now I can talk my s—.
“They had it pretty much where they didn’t give me a rematch clause for a reason. … They gave me a contract on the side, pretty much saying, like, ‘If you lose, this is what you’re gonna get for your next fights,’ pretty much predicting that I’m gonna lose.
“… Now it’s time for us to take over and move forward. That’s it. I told y’all, man, out with the old, in the with new.”
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