Teofimo Lopez confirmed that he’s negotiating a unification fight against IBF light welterweight champion Richardson Hitchins for early 2025.
Two-Belt Unification at 140
WBO 140-lb champion Lopez (21-1, 13 KOs) says he’ll fight Hitchins (19-0, 7 KOs) in a two-belt unification, then move up to 147 to challenge Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis for his IBF welterweight title in October in Riyadh. Ennis-Teofimo will be on the Ryan Garcia vs. Devin Haney 2 card.
Boots Ennis also has a preliminary fight he’ll be taking before meeting Lopez in October. Ennis could be fighting a unification next against WBA 147-lb champion Eimantas Stanionis. Given how bad Jaron looked in his last fight against Karen Chukhadzhian in their rematch on November 9th, you can’t rule out a win for Stanionis if that match happens.
Ennis looked something awful in several of his fights in recent years, struggling in his first match against Chukhadzhian and taking boatloads of punishment against Roiman Villa and David Avanesyan.
“At 140 and then we go to 147. We’re talking right now with [IBF light welterweight champion] Richardson Hitchins. We’re going to unify,” said Teofimo Lopez to Fight Hub TV about his negotiating a Unification fight with IBF light welterweight champion Richardson Hitchins.
Hitchins to Expose Teo?
Fighting Richardson Hitchins is risky for Teofimo because he was outboxed in his fights against Jamaine Ortiz, Sandor Martin, and George Kambosos Jr. in the last four years.
The judges saved Lopez’s hide in the Jamaine and Sandor fights, which appeared to lose but were gifted decisions. The unkindest cut of all was how badly Teofimo looked against bottom-feeder Steve Claggett in his last fight on July 29th.
This was supposed to be a confidence-builder for Lopez after how badly he struggled against Jamaine Ortiz in his previous contest, but he looked just as bad against Claggett. Lopez took a lot of punishment to the head. At the end of the fight, the downtrodden Lopez resembled Rocky Balboa from the movie, ‘Rocky,’ with his face beaten up and looking terrible.
Hitchins will likely make a fool of Teofimo and beat him worse than he did Liam Paro and John Bauza. Those are fighters that would give Teo pure hell, but Hitchins schooled them from A to B.
Teofimo’s One-Hit Wonder Status
If Teo loses to Hitchins, Turki Al-Sheikh might need to think about washing his hands of the Brooklyn, New York native and see him as a waste of time. If I were Turki, I’d have an early release clause in my three-fight contract with Teofimo, making the last two fights conditional on him beating Hitchins. If he loses that fight, I would cut him lose.
Teofimo’s fame came from fighting at lightweight, beating mostly lesser fighters until pulling an upset of an injured one-armed Vasily Lomachenko in 2020.
That is the only real solid win on Lopez’s resume, and that was a situation where he looked much bigger than Lomachenko, at 15 lbs, and fighting an injured fighter. Teofimo has beaten no one since to live up to the hype from that upset. It’s clear that Lopez was never as good as people thought he was, and they’d formed their opinions based on his win over Loma without factoring in the injury the Ukrainian was dealing with, and the massive size advantage Teo enjoyed in that match.
