Some will say that underdog replacement opponent Sandor Martin beat former unified lightweight world champ Teofimo Lopez Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in New York. At the very least, though, the Spaniard gave Lopez a much tougher fight than expected and, perhaps, help cast some serious doubt on the young fighter’s mental and emotional stability.
“The game is 90% mental, and when you’re not mentally stable, and you’re fighting those demons, you literally after to talk to yourself over and over. If you don’t have people around you to help you manage that, it’s going to be a problem,” ESPN commentator Tim Bradley told Fighthype, following Saturday’s split decision victory for Lopez.
“I said before the fight, speaking to this guy [Teofimo] during the fighter meeting, I don’t know who the hell I was speaking to. I was like, ‘Who is this kid?’ I’ve been following this kid and working his fights for the last three and a half years. I’m like, ‘This is a completely different person.’ I mean, all over the place.
“I’m not going to tell you what he said. I can just tell that something wasn’t right. I’m like, ‘The battle is not with Martin tonight. The battle is with himself.’ I knew something was off.
“…I thought he looked subpar tonight. It wasn’t what we’re used to seeing. I thought it was going to be an easier fight because he’s a superior athlete than Martin.
“His father was giving him great advice in the corner. ‘Corner this guy. Why are you throwing one shot at a time? Why are you not listening to me?’ His dad was telling him what was right…I thought his father did a terrific job with him, but Teo wasn’t listening. He just wasn’t listening to his father.”
The 25-year old Lopez would end up winning the disputed decision, but not before suffering a knockdown and looking all-around unimpressive in his second bout in the junior welterweight division, a little over a year removed from the high-profile loss to George Kambosos Jr. that would cost him his three world titles at lightweight.
“Something has to change,” Bradley added. “Every time he sets foot inside the ring, the trauma that he has suffered with the Kambosos loss. He’s still dealing with that.
“You’ve got to understand that this is his second fight back since that. He’s in a new weight class; there’s a lot of pressure on him. MSG, there’s a lot to deal with.”
If there was any doubt as to Lopez’s rattled status after Saturday’s performance, one need look no further than what was captured on the ESPN cameras.
“Bro, do I still have it, man?,” a seemingly distraught Lopez asked members of his team in a post-fight moment picked up by an ESPN cameraman. “Do I still got it?”
Immediately after the fight, Lopez blamed the poor showing on Martin and his unwillingness to exchange.
“It’s so hard to fight somebody like this, when they’re running the whole time,” Lopez said in his post-fight interview. “Every time this guy committed, I countered and got him every time. He just ran the whole time. It’s OK, though. We got a lot to work on….I apologize to everybody tonight. This is not how we perform. But listen, our dance partner was running the whole time.”
But Tim Bradley wasn’t the only one who noticed that Lopez was “off.”
Unified lightweight champ and long-time rival of Lopez, Devin Haney, commented via social media shortly after the contest.
“This a** grass,” Haney tweeted. “Kambosos ruined Teo…he will never b the same…”
Newly-crowned WBC junior welterweight champ and proposed future foe of Lopez, Regis Prograis, would also make a public statement of concern via social media.
“All jokes aside I hope Teo is ok,” Prograis wrote. “Boxing is a tough and lonely sport and it can be very taxing mentally. I think he might need some changes in his personal life.”
Time will tell how Teofimo Lopez’s career and life will progress from here. One can only hope for the best.
