A COUPLE of weeks after beating Steve Claggett in a dominant defence of his WBO 140-pound title, Teofimo Lopez was in a calm, reflective mood.
Speaking to ESPN’s Mark Kriegel, before jetting off on holiday to Italy, Teo talked about just how tough his Canadian opponent proved to be.
“I would say, I never threw this many punches in my career, but obviously with a raging bullfighter like Steve Claggett, you have to definitely stay active and push through,” he explained.
“However, I think that the takeaway was, for me, the will must be stronger than the skill, and that’s what it was that night. I’ll be honest though, I think I could have done 15 rounds with this guy. We should bring it back!”
While Kriegel swiftly shut that notion down, punching a face-first target round after round can certainly help preserve energy. Maintaining the same physical threat and mental focus when faced with one of his elite contemporaries will provide different challenges.
“What I learned is that I shouldn’t fix certain things that are not broken,” Lopez mused. “I changed the material inside my gloves from normal orthopaedic kind of gloves with Grant, I changed it to horse hair.
“I think the only ones that could really, like, be perfect on that end is Cleto Reyes. Nothing to take away from Grant, they’re phenomenal gloves.”
Unsatisfied with a materialistic response, Kriegel followed up on his initial probing question about some of the hidden, deeper things that Lopez might’ve learned from the Claggett fight.
“I think what I learned mainly about myself is that I still have the hunger for the game,” Lopez responded.
“I still have that love for the sport, and I think that’s the main important part of it. When I expressed to ESPN on the platform of the last showing of Max Kellerman, I remember I expressed that I don’t want to do this no more, I don’t need to.
“I felt like I accomplished everything, so as a fighter myself, that puts that into his element, and really wants to retire, I think I lost a little bit of fire in that moment. Especially coming off a phenomenal win against Taylor.”
The win over Josh Taylor was indeed phenomenal. The win over Claggett was more functional and Lopez knew the kind of fight it would turn out to be. Facing a veteran contender blessed with a “chin of rock” (Kriegel’s words), arriving in Florida to create his own Rocky Balboa moment, sometimes banana skins arrive in unforeseen moments.
While many scorned Steve Claggett’s selection as a world championship opponent, Teofimo placed faith in the wider promotional team to deliver him the right fights at the right time.
This is not something he has always done with Top Rank, especially around the wayward period that saw him first almost cross the street to Triller to fight George Kambosos. When that option fell through, the fight ended up on DAZN. Lopez now gives the impression that a similar move, attempting to find greener grass, would not happen twice.
“We have phenomenal matchmakers, Hall of Famers so to speak. Brad Goodman and Bruce Trampler, they know how to make a career.
“This is why we call it Top Rank, for that reason. Only the top can rank to this degree, and I’ve learned in this process of the game to allow the matchmakers to take care of my career.
“For instance, they’ve made the careers of Miguel Cotto, Felix Trinidad, The Four Horsemen, Floyd Mayweather, Oscar De La Hoya. The list could go on and on.”