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LAS VEGAS – Teofimo Lopez appreciates the opportunity Vasiliy Lomachenko gave him Saturday night.
The fully unified lightweight champion just doesn’t think there’s any reason they should fight again. Lopez believes a rematch would unfold similar to how he beat Lomachenko in their 12-round, 135-pound title unification fight.
There is not a rematch clause in their contracts, therefore it would be up to Lopez to grant Lomachenko a rematch. Ukraine’s Lomachenko, 32, might move back down to the 130-pound division and might not want a second shot at Lopez.
Lomachenko didn’t attend a post-fight press conference at MGM Grand, but the three-division champion didn’t mention a rematch in his post-fight interview with ESPN’s Mark Kriegel.
If Lomachenko requests one, Lopez wouldn’t see the point after out-boxing an opponent who was generally regarded as one of the top three fighters, pound-for-pound, in the sport.
“For what? For what?,” Lopez asked during the press conference. “I beat him, and I did everything that I had to [do] 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 sh-t. They had it pretty much where they didn’t give me a rematch clause for a reason.
“And 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. It’s fine. Now, you know, they’ve just gotta eat it up, suck it up. And 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.”
The 23-year-old Lopez (16-0, 12 KOs) won by huge margins on two of the three scorecards. Judge Tim Cheatham scored eight rounds for Lopez (116-112), but Julie Lederman (119-109) and Steve Weisfeld (117-111) respectively scored 11 and nine rounds for Lopez.
Lopez retained his IBF lightweight title and took the WBA “super”, WBC “franchise” and WBO 135-pound crowns from Lomachenko (14-2, 10 KOs). Brooklyn’s Lopez has plenty of options whether he remains at the lightweight limit of 135 pounds or moves up to the junior welterweight division for his next fight.
His father/trainer, Teofimo Lopez Sr., agrees that there is no reason for boxing’s youngest fully unified champion in the four-belt era to battle Lomachenko again.
“I mean, if the fight would’ve been close, maybe, you know,” Lopez Sr. said.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.