It’s weird to think that two world-class boxers need a big win this year to forget last year’s wins – especially since neither of them lost that year – but it’s a shared goal at the end of the year. this Saturday evening (June 10) when Josh Taylor And Teofimo López clash in New York.
A fight for survival for the two, Taylor needed Lopez to quell the noise following his controversial win over Jack Catterall last February, while Lopez needed Taylor to quell the buzz in his head. Both are on a winning streak and seem, at least on paper, to be in a good, career-wise position, however, you’ll find the truth in the finer details. In finer detail, you’ll understand how important this Saturday’s fight is and why, for both, it represents more than just an opportunity to leave Madison Square Garden as an ultralightweight titleholder. of the WBO. For both, this is more important than restoring fame and being considered the best 140-pound boxer in the world. It is about redemption of the most unexpected and unorthodox kind.
Taylor, of course, would argue about all of that. He will declare that there is no need to restore his reputation, nor to see this fight against Lopez as anything other than defending his latest WBO belt. For him, his February win over Catterall was just that: a win. That it was near, and the fact that he found himself knocked out in the process, was neither here nor there. Also, the fact that the rematch never materialized was just one of those things on Taylor’s mind. He says it will be there again in the future, though skeptics might say, given the nature of the first battle and the reluctance Taylor has shown to discuss it or the rematch. competition, it is unlikely to rank high on the Scotsman’s priority list. he conquered Lopez this weekend.
It should be, mind. After all, until Taylor tackles Catterall more definitively, the fight between the pair over a year ago will always be the stick Taylor’s critics use to beat him. It’s also not unfair that they behave this way, especially given how well-boxed Catterall was that night and how out of place Taylor looked, both compared to Catterall and compared to how Taylor has shown in many other fights. Suddenly, for some reason, Taylor that night couldn’t treat his Englishman roughly the way he’d treated his opponents before. Suddenly, he had no answer to Catterall’s sharp counterattack and clever footwork.
Again, this is something Taylor, 19-0 (13), would object to. In response, he will say that he has rallied for a long time and that Catterall, as the challenger, did not do enough to take the title away from him that night. Admittedly it’s a difficult argument to accept, but it’s still an argument; a Taylor has every right to throw at anyone who criticizes him.
To be fair, Taylor too, it’s time for everyone to move on and forget about that fight, if only for the time being. Fourteen months is a long time and the rematch, for whatever reason, isn’t happening anytime soon. It is therefore important now that both Taylor and Catterall, who returned to the ring last weekend to overtake Darragh Foley, re-establish themselves as separate entities and move away from being seen as mere mere mortals. The pawns in a competition may or may not continue. future.
Finally, Taylor, having pulled out of the scheduled Catterall rematch due to injury, turned his attention to Teofimo Lopez, the former world lightweight champion. “This is a better match than the Catterall rematch because of both Lopez’s global reputation and the fact that he has been – albeit briefly – topping a weight class,” he said. That’s also true, although it would be foolish for anyone to suggest this fight is, given the context, somehow more important or urgent than the aforementioned return to Catterall.
Jack Catterall and Josh Taylor exchange punches (Mikey Williams/Top Rank Inc via Getty Images)
However, we took what we were given and what we will be given this weekend is a great match between two boxers with a pretty great combo style. Differing only in stances and nationalities, Taylor and Lopez are cut from the very fabric of blood and aggression, confronting and arguing in every way best when it comes to a sport that includes such things as boxing. . Neither wants to take a step back, whether in the ring or in an argument, and both are driven by the kind of machinery that simply won’t wash out in most other areas of life. living.
Out of the two, it’s probably Taylor who’s flying higher at the moment. He, despite that Catterall problem, remains undefeated as a pro, won 19 straight fights and is still someone most of the world’s ultralightweights have good reason to worry about. fearless in 2023. Relentless in his approach and often able to win and forced to stop whenever pressure mounts, Taylor, since turning pro in 2015, has developed evolved into an all-round, well-balanced fighting machine with a speed and pacing few can match, even at the highest levels. In fact, for a time he was arguably Britain’s best heavyweight boxer, with his stock holdings never higher when he heads to Las Vegas in 2021 to add titles. José Ramírez’s WBC and WBO into his own WBA and IBF belts. After that victory, nothing seemed to stop Taylor on her path to global domination. Sure, if he hadn’t been stuck, it wouldn’t have been against domestic opposition in the form of Jack Catterall.
As for Lopez, 18-1 (13), his time at the top was short. One moment he usurped Vasiliy Lomachenko in the mother of all breakthrough performances and the next he ruined all that good with an equally shocking loss to George Kambosos. of Australia. The fact that those two fights took place back-to-back speaks volumes not only to the unpredictable nature of world champion boxing but also to the unpredictable nature of Teofimo Lopez. Unfortunately, he was just built that way. On his day, he can be quite talented, as shown in the match against Lomachenko, but it always feels like he has one more bad half or one more lousy performance to go. completely resolved.
This suspicion only increased after that defeat to Kambosos in 2021. Since then, Lopez has only fought twice, last year beating Pedro Campa in seventh minute of injury time and leaving Sandor Martin by more than 10, and quite a defeat. Hope there are signs of regression. In particular, when facing Martin, Lopez can probably count himself lucky to receive a split verdict at the end of the match and he knows it too, even asking members of his team after the game to see if they felt he was still capable. It’s a candid moment in their newfound sport, but it also tries to offer a disturbing insight into Lopez’s thinking at the moment. Uncertain, both about himself and his career trajectory, he is certainly not a confident boxer that the loss to Kambosos was just a kick from which he will surely recover. Instead, it almost feels to Lopez that his peak, or time at the top, will always be short and explosive and that the moment it ends will be the moment he begins too. slide.
Some fighters are like that. They ignite quickly, then deflate at the same rate. This also hardly helps when the fighter in question is a fighter whose life outside the ring is as turbulent inside it. That’s not to say Lopez is a bad egg, or someone to keep an eye on when he’s not boxing, but there are countless signs that all is not well at home or in his head since the fight. lost to Kambosos. Furthermore, one wonders what kind of impact, both positive and negative, his outspoken father has had on Teofimo over the years. As for the pressure, or expectation, when so much of his father’s identity is tied to what Teofimo achieved in the ring, people are beginning to question the weight of that on a boxer’s shoulders. , don’t forget, still 25 years old.
Most likely, like Taylor, Lopez will dismiss these concerns with all the stubbornness of a world champion boxer, then point to last year’s victories as proof that he has back to the saddle. But the truth is, it’s only in a game like Saturday’s against an opponent like Taylor that Lopez can really show that he’s back at his best and ready to get back to the top. of this sport. Until then, he remains a mystery. He’s still a boxer capable of beating anyone at his weight on his day, but at the same time, he’s also a fighter capable of losing to anyone at his weight. when his mind is not focused on the task at hand.
Teofimo Lopez (Al Bello/Getty Image)
By contrast, Taylor is a man who will have better control over his temper when he walks into the ring and the first bell rings. It is there, in that field, that Taylor is measured, professional and stylish. Disappeared in 36 minutes, the image of the fiery character always ready to put his foot in his mouth whenever he spoke, and also disappeared, the image of the man whose pride sometimes hinders his ability to grasp his reality. In those 36 minutes, Taylor was simply a man born to fight, embodying in that span of time everything you could expect to see in a world champion boxer. He is a professional model. He’s a textbook stylist. He does almost everything right.
Lopez, though less refined, has the explosiveness Taylor may have lacked, as well as extreme quickness; fast even at light weight, let alone super light weight. Chances are, he’ll also start Saturday’s game at real pace, possibly even winning the early innings and gaining plenty of momentum along the way. In the end, though, it’s the middle of the fight, and in the later innings he’ll be tested more than ever. Historically, it was in those rounds that Taylor became strong and did her best job. It’s during those rounds that both fighters will need to show the kind of focus they find wandering in skirmishes in 2022 and bring it all together in company with someone with a similar mentality. . Seemingly destined to go long, it’s easy to envision a scenario where Taylor takes a little while to get going but then, once he’s gone, proves too much for Lopez as life The war has come to an end. At that point, he will have accumulated enough innings to see the game come to an end, making a close but unanimous decision when he returns home to Scotland.
