Juan Manuel Lopez says he's not ducking Celestino Caballero. He believes his promoter, however, is. (AP Photo)

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Speaking with Primera Hora upon his arrival in Puerto Rico after Saturday's grueling fight with Rogers Mtagwa, Juan Manuel Lopez discussed Celestino Caballero and had a firm answer (link in Spanish): It's Top Rank, not him, avoiding the Panamanian titlist.

Caballero has been talking trash for months toward Lopez, and Lopez has said he'd like to fight him. He said it again today:

"I want to fight Celestino for all the trash talking, but the company has other plans. If I can't get him now, perhaps another time."

I'd say Lopez was trying to skirt the issue, but he's not. He was vocally displeased with Rogers Mtagwa as his October opponent, as he wanted a bigger fight, and even though it turned out to be a great battle and a Fight of the Year candidate, he was still right about that. That date could've been Lopez-Caballero. January supposedly was all but delivered as Lopez-Caballero. And now, it's looking more and more like that won't happen. When even Lopez is pretty sure it's not going to happen and is basically just throwing Arum and Co. under the bus on why it's not happening, it's probably not happening.

This makes me think we're most likely to see Lopez go up to 126 to fight Steven Luevano for his title, with Yuriorkis Gamboa facing Bernabe Concepcion on that same January 23 card.  Anything that avoids Luevano-Concepcion II is fine by anyone that saw their first, erm, "fight," but Luevano's just good enough and technically sound enough to wind up playing spoiler if Lopez has an off night.

The good news is that Luevano is highly unlikely to try and goad Lopez into a brawl, which is what Mtagwa did to find some success against Juanma, and frankly Lopez is a highly skilled boxer when he puts it to use. It might not wind up exciting, but Lopez should and would be considered a strong favorite over Luevano. Not a good style matchup for Luevano, I don't think.

Luevano, again, was the name used as Lopez's Jan. 23 opponent on recent Top Rank press materials, so maybe that wasn't just a placeholder. I'd rather see Lopez againat Elio Rojas, but getting Don King to make a fight can be pulling teeth anymore.

Bottom line, though: While back-and-forth media barbs like this lead sometimes to fights getting signed (as appears to be the case with Diaz-Malignaggi II), it doesn't look like this is one of those times. The audience actually clamoring for Lopez-Caballero is fairly small, and Bob Arum knows that 95% of that same diehard audience will tune in to watch Lopez on January 23 no matter who he fights.