Ryan Burton of BoxingScene.com reports tonight that there was a bit of an incident, so to speak, at the Lopez-Marquez weigh-in on Friday. Celestino Caballero and trainer Jeff Mayweather showed up to have words with Lopez about a possible 2011 fight, and it got physical between Caballero and members of Lopez's entourage, with one of the Puerto Rican's "bodyguards" allegedly punching Caballero.
Caballero, as always, had something to say when speaking to BoxingScene:
"I just wanted to talk to Juanma and get him to agree to fight me. ... If I wanted a brawl I would have brought my Panamanian crew. I just want to fight him."
Well, you can't accuse Caballero of being boring. The Panamanian is scheduled for a likely one-stop fight at 130 pounds against Jason Litzau on November 27, the opening TV bout of a triple-header on HBO. It's been over a year now since he's been seriously calling out Lopez, chasing him from 122 pounds up to 126. The fight appeared likely for this past January, before the sides bickered over who was asking for too much or too little, and Lopez instead fought Steven Luevano.
Should Lopez beat Rafael Marquez tomorrow at the MGM Grand, there will be plenty of potential next fights for him, but there's a lot of heat behind a Lopez-Caballero fight at this point, maybe even more than for Lopez-Yuriorkis Gamboa, which is the big fight Top Rank wants to build to. Of course, Top Rank controls both fighters, so of course they'd prefer that than to match Lopez with the dangerous Caballero, who fights for DiBella Entertainment. But for now, both of them have fights to win this month, and they should each probably focus on that.