IBF lightweight titleholder Teofimo Lopez hit Instagram Live for a bit and got annoyed with boxing fans, basically, including one who brought up Floyd Mayweather saying that Devin Haney would beat Lopez.
Lopez repeatedly “held back” what he apparently really wanted to say, but did express himself a little.
“Floyd’s gotta say that. Floyd’s gotta say Devin is gonna school me,” he said. “I gotta catch myself. There’s a lot of shit that we cannot say. In the public eye, there’s a lot of shit we cannot say. Call it house arrest or some shit, can’t say shit, because then we get bashed. But all I can say is they grew up together, pretty much. He seen Devin grow up as a little kid. He’s gotta say that, bro. He’s probably got feelings for him, he’s got a connection.”
Pressed further about Haney, Lopez held up a printed photo of his fellow young lightweight, and shouted, “Yes, I would fight this bitch! Yes, I would fight him! We tried to fight him! That’s fuckin’ stupid!” He then held up a printed photo of Ryan Garcia and said the same thing about him.
“They lie to you guys,” Lopez said of Haney and Garcia. “They talk to each other, they trash each other, they do everything with each other, they can make a fight happen with each other, because they’re comfortable.
“They feel like, ‘Hey, I got a chance, I’m confident with it, I’m gonna do my thing, ah he sucks!’ Then when we step up to the plate, ‘Hey, let’s make a fight happen,’ it’s, ‘Uhhh, I need a tune-up fight, uhhh, I won’t do it, right now it’s quarantine, and I just came back from an injury.’ Fuck you! Stop being a bitch!”
Lopez (15-0, 12 KO) won the IBF title in December with a second round stoppage of Richard Commey, a very impresive win, and was expected to meet WBA/WBO unified titlist Vasiliy Lomachenko in late May on pay-per-view.
Lopez recently said he doesn’t want to fight without fans in attendance, but given that this seems to be the future for boxing at the moment, he may eventually have no choice.