BY ADAM NOBLE-FORCEY
ANGELO LEO upset the applecart at 126 pounds, coming in as the vast underdog to produce a frontrunner for Knockout of the Year against Luis Alberto Lopez. The New Mexico native thrillingly claimed the IBF featherweight world title in his hometown of Albuquerque in what was meant to be a routine title defence for established champion Lopez.
Leo (25-1, 12 KOs) landed a sweet left-hook, laying Lopez flat on his back in the 10th round in a fight where he had been brought in to fill the arena against the reigning Mexican. The 30-year-old duly became a two-weight world champion while also wiping out arguably the most dangerous man in the division.
“I’ve watched it back alright,” Angelo Leo said of his latest knockout victory. “I’ve gone over it many times and have enjoyed studying it. I went in there with a chip on my shoulder to prove everyone wrong. I felt confident, but not overconfident. We prepared very well for this fight. My team and my sparring partners were the ones who really got me to that point. I pushed myself to the limit, I was very prepared for this fight.”
Angelo Leo (R) landing a left hand on the now dethroned champion Luis Alberto Lopez (L).
Despite the spectacular one-punch finish in what appeared to be an out-of-the-blue voluntary title defence, Leo was still pulling ahead on the scorecards from the middle rounds as Lopez started to look far less of the champion who upset Josh Warrington in Leeds and stopped Michael Conlan in Belfast.
“I thought that I won the first three rounds,” Leo explained. “I was thinking to myself that if I keep this up, I’ll win! I wasn’t planning to knock him out like that. The main plan was just to get the win and get the world title around my waist. A knockout had never crossed my mind for this fight. He has a good chin, he has never been knocked out before or even dropped before.
“I had seen some defensive flaws that he had, but he knew how to manage them well. It’s his style. I didn’t think catching him cleanly like that would knock him out. He drops his opposite hand when he throws a punch, our goal was to try and catch him when he was throwing and drops his hand. We were trying to exploit him there, that’s why I was throwing in between the shots.
“I take all my fights seriously, but this one I added a little bit more. Just a little bit of consistency to my workout routine and it made a huge difference. I had spoken to ‘Venado’s’ manager before my last fight with [Eduardo] Baez. He said: ‘Get through that fight and you will fight Lopez.’ I’ve known about it for a long time. It was on my mind going into the fight before this one.”
Lopez would receive a bleed to the brain following his first stoppage defeat in a 19-year professional career.
“I haven’t spoken to him, but I’ve heard he’s doing a lot better,” Leo added. “It was a small brain bleed, but from what they have told me he should be okay. You just have to see it for what it is, it’s boxing. If it wasn’t him, it would be me. Boxing is the most dangerous sport in the world. We do have to think about these things a lot more, the fact we could get seriously injured.”
Born and raised where he would become a two-weight world champion, Leo aims to continue New Mexico’s rich boxing’s heritage.
“It meant a lot to win like that in front of my own fans,” he said. “It is where I grew up. It’s where all my friends and family live. To go out to a crowd like that and perform the way that I did, it’s everything I have ever wanted from my career. It was my house that night, but I wasn’t going to let that throw me off track. I knew he was the champion. My main goal was to win that world championship, it doesn’t matter where it was at. I’ve had a lot of love from back home since. Johnny Tapia’s team reached out to congratulate me and Danny Romero congratulated me as well. Austin Trout got in touch too, he’s a cool guy.
“I know there are a lot of fighters from New Mexico. There was at least one fighter on my undercard who is from New Mexico, too. It feels good to give the fighters some opportunities and the massive platform to fight on a big promotion like Top Rank.”
Leo claimed the vacant WBO super-bantamweight title following a wide unanimous-decision against Tramaine Williams over four years ago. He would lose his belt against Stephen Fulton in his first defence six months later, and would shortly fall off the radar, not seeing competitive action for nearly two and a half years. However, Leo would resurface on ProBox TV’s Wednesday Nights Fights, moving up a weight division to score under-the-radar victories over Nicholas Polanco, Mike Plania and the aforementioned Baez.
“Now I’ve got a few fights under the Top Rank banner,” Leo continued. “I should have a defence by the end of year, then we will take it from there. Possibly in New Mexico again, but nothing is set in stone yet. Being the guy that I am, I want to fight the best and go down in history. It means I will have to fight the other champions. The featherweight division is packed with a lot of talent, I’m ready for whoever. I know they want to give me a defence first. Then we will see if we can unify the belts. There are a lot of options on the table.
“I would like to fight all over the world, I’m down for any of these fights. I met Bob Arum. For 90 years old, he is everywhere. He was very excited and proud to go back and see Albuquerque, he has the history there with Johnny Tapia. I think they were pretty surprised how my fight turned out. Top Rank really liked me as an opponent going into this fight, that’s the reason why they put it in my hometown, but despite it being hosted at home it was him as champion. They wanted to do something with me but I had to play my part. They just expected a much different outcome.”
The road to having Leo’s name etched into the history books has been long and arduous. An almost necessary ingredient for a fighter to claim world glory.
“When times were hard me and my dad would have to stay in my car sometimes because we just didn’t have the money to rent a room.” Leo exclaimed. “We got a van at one point, and would stay in there. This was around 2012, when we would go out to California for sparring. It was a difficult time, we didn’t have a lot of money. My dad would have to still take me though because the sparring was much better. He always believed in me, it’s what influenced me a lot. His belief rubbed off on me. We always knew that one day we would get there.
“We did end up moving back to New Mexico with family and we got back on our feet there. We did still want that California sparring though, but we would still stay in our car. Then I got a few pro fights back in New Mexico and I had a job and stuff. But then the doors kinda shut on us. My dad wanted us to get out because the fights were not really cutting it for me there. That’s when me and dad moved to Vegas. It’s where the ball really started rolling.”
The other featherweight belts are in the hands of Nick Ball (WBA), Rafael Espinoza (WBO) and Rey Vargas (WBC). While one of boxing’s biggest superstars in Naoya Inoue could be set to join Leo in the not-too-distant future.
“That would be an amazing fight right there when he moves up from junior featherweight,” Leo said regarding Inoue. “I want all these guys. I want to keep moving forward and challenge myself the highest possible level. If that means going to Japan or the UK, I want to do all of that.”