Teofimo Lopez won’t be fighting Subriel Matias in March amid an ongoing feud with Top Rank
WBO super lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez has spent a significant portion of the last few days railing against promoter Top Rank on Twitter, and now we know why. Keith Idec reports that Lopez turned down an offer “way above his contract minimum” to face Subriel Matias in March.
Lopez (21-1, 13 KO), attempting to post through it, claims that he didn’t reject the fight, Top Rank rejected his counter-offer. Which is rejecting the fight.
“The Takeover” has competed just twice since upsetting Josh Taylor in June of 2023, immediately retiring, then un-retiring out of self-confessed spite towards Arnold Barboza Jr. The first bout saw him take an uninspiring decision over career lightweight in Jamaine Ortiz, after which he reportedly turned down genuine threats like Kenneth Sims Jr and Elvis Rodriguez in favor of journeyman Steve Claggett.
It’s hard to argue that Lopez hasn’t been at least somewhat coddled over the last couple years. The WBO has just straight-up refused to give him a mandatory challenger despite being over six months overdue, instead putting Barboza and Jack Catterall through a seemingly endless line of eliminators. Top Rank acquiesced to his complaints about Ortiz’s movement and gave him a light-punching pressure fighter, against whom Lopez still contrived to underwhelm.
Going through all that and then throwing a public fit when pushed to face a real contender is a bad look. This is a grown man posting like a teenager.
As for Matias, he’s in position to work his way up the IBF ladder instead. They’ve yet to update their rankings since Richardson Hitchins beat Liam Paro for the belt, but assuming nobody gets leapfrogged, he’ll be in prime position for an eliminator thanks to Barboza and Catterall going the WBO route. Gabriel Gollaz Valenzuela and the aforementioned Rodriguez sit behind him in the rankings.
