Teofimo Lopez is worried about the state of boxing at the moment. With Jake Paul becoming one of the main faces of boxing, Lopez fears it is taking the attention away from the ‘real’ professionals. ‘The Takeover’ is still a big draw, but the kind of numbers that ‘The Problem Child’ is doing will rival or maybe even outdo him, making him believe ‘prime boxing’ era has come to an end.
Paul, right now is just days away from his fight against bare knuckle champion, Mike Perry. Neither of them are professional boxers. At least Perry was a moderately successful UFC fighter before making the transition to BKFC.
Paul, has been an YouTuber all his life and has only fought a pro boxer once. He has taken on retired mixed martial artists and YouTubers and managed to become a big star in the sport.
Now, that creates a genuine problem in the boxing community for up and coming talents. In a recent interview with FightHype.com Lopez related this to the current state of boxing and said that they were dealing with a fan base that believed the younger Paul brother to be a P4P great.
“We’re dealing with people nowadays where they think Jake Paul is a pound-for-pound fighter in the world so we’re dealing with that type of casual fans now…The whole modern-day era has died.”
‘The Takeover’ always talks about making boxing great again and bringing back the purist fans of the sport, the ones that want to see the big fights in boxing being made.
He does not like the new age of social media boxing where the one with the most clout gets the biggest fights. And he isn’t entirely wrong. A boxing fight between retired UFC fighter Nate Diaz and semi-retired Jorge Masvidal did more numbers than a Shakur Stevenson title fight last week.
So, Lopez is not wrong. The start of boxing is at stake. And he plans on doing something about it.
Can Lopez save boxing by beating Terence Crawford?
Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford is arguably the most dominant athlete in not just his division, but in boxing.
Although he hasn’t fought in a while, his win over Errol Spence Jr. just re-cemented his greatness.
However, Lopez thinks despite his towering stature, Crawford can fall to his speed.
“Crawford is very wide…y’all don’t see it. Crawford’s always been tall and lanky. Just everything is faster, it’s crispier, just straight shots.”
“Crawford is very wide…y’all don’t see it.”
Teofimo Lopez breaks down why he thinks he beats Terence Crawford. pic.twitter.com/jZrxM4fzUX
— Sean Zittel (@Sean_Zittel) July 14, 2024
For the unversed, Crawford has a significant reach advantage over Lopez, but the former champ says it will work in his favor.
‘The Takeover’ claims that having a short reach will make him crisper and faster than ‘Bud’.
Lopez likes to get into weird angles, and which helps him close in the distance and negate the reach factor without getting hurt too much.
This often sets him up for counter attacks, which, given his speed, really disrupts the opponent’s rhythm even if it doesn’t finish the job.
Now, a lot more depends on this fight; Lopez’s philosophy about boxing only works when fans get entertained. For that to happen, people need to get knocked out.
And the only people who got slept during the Stevenson fight was the 8,000 odd who watched it.
So, the idea is, make it good, violent and entertaining. Now, how that transpires in a fight with Crawford, fans will have to wait and see.
