Teofimo Lopez In Talks To Fight Jamaine Ortiz On February 8th
Teofimo Lopez, the WBO junior welterweight champion, is reportedly in talks to fight Jamaine Ortiz on February 8th, 2024, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Lopez Vs. Ortiz
According to Mike Coppinger, Jose Ramirez was first offered the bout, but the boxer turned it down, leaving Ortiz as the front-runner. Lopez has not fought since he beat Josh Taylor, the former undisputed champion at 140, to get the belt in his last fight.
The Takeover desires to secure the most significant fights for the biggest paydays. So far, this has proved problematic. Lopez allegedly was offered $1.5 million to face Ryan Garcia, which he turned down. The reasoning was that the value of him being a two-weight and two-time lineal champion needed to be recognized. Oscar De La Hoya denied that an offer had been made.
“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
“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 Vs. Matias
Another attempt to secure a big fight against Subriel Matias failed. The pair were in talks to fight in February in a unification bout. But Matias withdrew with a hand injury. They are still on course to face each other in June at the National Puerto Rican Day Parade as talks continue.
As for Ortiz, he is a natural lightweight, which would require him to move up. His best performance was arguably against his former sparring partner, Vasiliy Lomachenko. Despite starting the first half of the fight well, the Ukrainian pulled away to win by a unanimous decision.
Since the Lomachenko loss, Ortiz bounced back to beat Antonio Moran via a unanimous decision. Lopez will be the heavy favorite, but it does raise questions over why he is fighting a 135-pounder rather than a full-fledged 140-pounder. If Lopez beats Ortiz, a unification fight against Matias will be the next goal. And if Lopez does secure that fight and win, then a mega Devin Haney fight could be on the cards.
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