De La Hoya Denies Making Teofimo Lopez An Offer To Face Ryan Garcia
Oscar De La Hoya has rejected Teofimo Lopez’s claims that he had turned down a $1.5 million offer to fight Ryan Garcia.
The talk of a Garcia-Lopez fight was first teased by De La Hoya. The promoter suggested that it could be part of a Super Bowl weekend event. That was on the condition that Garcia came out victorious against Oscar Duarte, which he has now done.
That fight would fit into Lopez’s plans of wanting to fight the biggest names in the sport for the highest paydays. Following his win over Josh Taylor to secure the WBO belt, Lopez stated that his intention was to fight for nine-figure paydays. Therefore, the news of the offer did not sit well with him.
Lopez Vs. Garcia
“When you’re the best, when you are the guy, when you bring major sponsors, endorsements, big major business deals, when you offer me a 1.5 [million dollars] stake in the piece—f–k you. So yeah I declined the offer. “What’s next for me is world wide takeover, that’s what’s next. I want to go to Italy, I want to take it to other places in different ways. I got a lot of fan base in Africa, too, I want to go out there. My whole thing is taking it global because nobody else is going to help me in the boxing game no more,” Lopez said
And yet, De La Hoya dismissed that an offer had been presented.
“I never made Teofimo an offer. I sat down with his promoter Bob Arum and we discussed a percentage split and that was it. Never made him an offer. But I’ll tell you one thing. I will be watching very closely when Devin Haney and Regis Prograis go at it [on Dec. 2] and the winner will possibly get a call from me where we can start negotiating a fight with Ryan, if Ryan wins [against Oscar Duarte on Saturday],” De La Hoya stated
Lopez’s Next Steps
That news will be a huge blow to Lopez, given that Garcia is the money fight. The latter had shown his pulling power when he faced Gervonta Davis. Despite losing via a seventh-round stoppage, the boxer had earned $30 million. And in the process of doing so, the event was the highest gate of 2023, grossing in over $20 million.
Outside of Garcia then, Lopez could move up to 147 to fight for the belts in the event that Terence Crawford vacates. The Takeover has expressed his desire to face Bud, but that is unlikely to happen since Crawford is aiming for the Spence rematch and then a Canelo Alvarez fight.
That has left question marks over whether Lopez’s commercial value does reflect what he is demanding by way of purses. His failure to sell out his hometown for the Josh Taylor fight was indicative of that. Nevertheless, Lopez’s accomplishments cannot be denied. He does have one of the best resumes in the sport, which has made him a two-weight and two-division champion. So can he secure those big fights?
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