The Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder three-match isn’t the only fight causing a whole heap of frustrating times. The ongoing saga with the lightweight bout between champ Teofimo Lopez and IBF mandatory challenger George Kambosos Jr has just about reached the point of ridicule.
First, seemingly way back now, Triller won the purse bid for the fight – this with a head-turning bid of $6.018 million – and since then the fight has suffered multiple date shifts.
The fight was originally set for June 5, then it was moved to June 19, then, with Lopez going down with COVID, a new date of August 14 came into being, which was then postponed to September 11.
Now, according to ESPN, the fight is being targeted for October – in Australia. Kambosos, who has trained like a demon for this, a fight he is super-positive he can and will win, must be going out of his mind right about now. Okay, being able to fight in his homeland would be a great thing, but even then, the number of postponements must have been hard to take.
And now Lopez’ team are not at all keen on the idea of traveling to Oz to take the fight; to the extent that David McWater, Teo’s manager, is saying they may well just vacate the IBF belt and move on.
Kambosos, who has vowed to make Lopez, 16-0(12) pay for making him wait and wait for his chance to “lay hands on him,” will be outraged if Lopez does drop the belt.
But it’s looking like a real possibility.
McWater said he doesn’t think it will get that far, that “if they want to move [the fight] that far back the IBF will rule.” However, McWater added “But fine, if we have to, we’ll give up the title and he (Kambosos) can fight Isaac Cruz somewhere for $70,000.”
It would be a real shame for Kambosos, 19-0(10) if he did wind up fighting Cruz, the next available contender in the IBF lightweight rankings, for the vacant strap.
But again, it’s looking like a real possibility. If Lopez doesn’t want to fight in Australia, who on earth can make him do so? October, by the way, will mark a full year since Lopez defeated Vasiliy Lomachenko to become 135 pound champ, while October is the last time Kambosos saw action, when he defeated Lee Selby to earn his shot at the IBF title.
Lopez Vs. Kambosos has been one big mess from the start.
