Renowned trainer and ESPN analyst, Teddy Atlas, was brutally honest when assessing the present tense ring skills of former 3-belt lightweight champ Teofimo Lopez. He was also brutally honest regarding trainer Teofimo Lopez Sr.’s role in the 25-year-old fighter’s poor form in recent fights.
“Not only has Lopez not progressed, he’s regressed,” Atlas said on his The Fight with Teddy Atlas podcast, referring to Lopez’s recent lackluster showing against Spain’s Sandor Martin. “He does nothing. You gonna think I’m being tough. No, I’m being honest. If he were a baseball player, he’d back to hitting from the tee. Really. Really. I’m serious. He showed nothing.
“He pushed his jab all night, he reaches into counters. If anybody of any intelligence of this sport was in his corner…there’s just one thing I needed to tell Lopez. Listen, all night long, every time you come in, he’s not there. He steps out and makes you miss.”
“Feint, feint,” Atlas advised Lopez. “Act like you’re going to come in. Get him to make that step out prematurely. And come in behind a snapping, not a pushing jab and get him. And close the gap and get him.
“Nobody taught him that. Nobody to tell him that. Who’s gonna tell him that, and more importantly who’s gonna teach him that in the gym. Nobody. Nobody.”
Atlas more than suggested that Lopez needs to find a new trainer and move away from his father. He also acknowledged, however, the emotional and psychological difficulty in Lopez severing ties with his own father in such a high-profile situation.
“This kid’s alone,” Atlas continued. “You’re talking about being alone in the ring. When you get in that ring he’s really alone. And you know what there’s a part of him probably on some level…there’s a part of him that probably knows that, but he won’t go against his father. He probably knows that he’s in that type of prison and that kind of rocket ship downward and he’s in it.
“But the guy driving the rocket ship is his father and he’s not going to kick his father out of that seat. He’s staying in that rocket ship until it crashes or wherever it freaking goes. There’s gotta be a part of him, on an emotional level, that is depressed over that. Intellectually, he has to know that, on some level and knowing that he’s in a kamikaze flight. Really.”
Atlas would then kick into trainer mode with a few more words of advice for the former world champ.
“Jab to the chest, somebody tell him that,” Atlas counseled. “Hey this guy’s controlling you on the outside, that’s his world. He wants to live out there. Stabilize him. Jab to the chest, you won’t miss so easily. Just stabilize him so easily. And snap your jab. Don’t push it. Little things like that. Common sense things. Go to the body. Go to the body. He’s using his legs to defeat you, or give you trouble, right?”
Lopez beat Martin on December 10 via disputable 10-round split decision. Just over a year removed from his upset loss to George Kambosos Jr., the poor showing has led many to doubt Lopez’s stability as a high-end, world class performer and some to question whether the young fighter had been overrated following his upset of Vasiliy Lomachenko in October of 2020.
Lopez’s own doubts and insecurities seemed to manifest themselves live on national television shortly after the Sandor Martin bout.
“Bro, do I still have it, man?,” a seemingly distraught Lopez asked members of his team in a post-fight moment picked up by ESPN cameras. “Do I still got it?”
