Teofimo Lopez and Subriel Matias Explore 2024 Unification Showdown
According to reports, Subriel Matias and Teofimo Lopez are negotiating a unification bout for next year.
The pair were first linked with a fight for February. Matias holds the IBF belt at super lightweight, having beaten Shohjahon Ergashev in his last fight. Matias’ record speaks for itself, as he has one loss in 21 fights. 20 of his wins have all come by way of knockout.
Meanwhile, Lopez is the current WBO champion. The ‘Takeover’ defeated Josh Taylor in his previous fight to give the former undisputed super lightweight champion his first loss. That has set up the narrative for a mega-fight. A February date, though, was ruled out as Matias suffered an injury.
Lopez Vs. Matias
“Just spoke to the manager of Subriel Matias, the IBF champion. Confirmed that Teofimo Lopez and his team sent an offer to fight in February Super Bowl weekend. Unfortunately, Matias’ team had to turn it down due to a hand injury. They are now working on rescheduling the fight for April after therapy. A person with Knowledge of the situation tells me Teo is fighting on his Date of February. Teofimo Lopez showing huge Heart,” The Boxing Voice said
But now Chris Mannix reports that there are “substantive conversations between [Top Rank] and Matias” for a bout on the “NYC Puerto Rican Day Parade weekend.”
The news is also significant in light of Devin Haney. Bill Haney alleged that they had called Matias’ camp in order to see if a unification fight could be done following Haney’s win over Regis Prograis. The ‘Dream’ dominated his opponent to win the WBC junior welterweight title. That made him a two-division champion as Haney announced himself to the 140-pound division. But when it came to fighting Haney, Bill accused Matias of having unrealistic demands.
Lopez Vs. Matias For June
“The kid wants $4 million.’ I told him the kid only made a couple hundred thousand. We didn’t make $4 million to go to Australia [to fight former IBF, WBA & WBO lightweight champion George Kambosos Jr. in 2022]. We made $2.8 [million.] Peter Kahn knows that…He was the manager of George Kambosos, so we were able to negotiate that, but Peter didn’t put $4 million on the table for Devin. It was far less than that. I just thought that was ridiculous, and it was one way to tell me to stop calling him,” Bill Haney said
Despite this being the case, Matias’ side denied anything of the sort. His team accused Haney of not approaching them directly, thus ruling it out as serious.
“Subriel Matías’ team has not received any calls about negotiations to face Devin Haney. Peter Kahn has NOTHING to do with Subriel Matías. Promoter Juan Orengo and Matías’ manager, Pedro Cruz are the only representatives of ‘Orgullo De Maternillo,” Matias’ spokesperson
Either way, a Lopez-Matias fight will pit the best at 140 against each other. And that could lead to a Haney fight later down the line. ‘Find all the latest boxing news and MMA breaking updates on boxingnews.com’
