Teofimo Lopez is putting his promoters at Top Rank in a tough position, saying he must be given a “nine-figure contract” for him to come out of retirement to return to boxing.
The former IBF/WBA/WBO & Ring lightweight champion Teofimo (19-1, 13 KOs) complains that he’d been paid only $1 million for his fights, whereas other fighters are paid “8, 10, 12, 15 million dollars.”
The guys that are making that kind of money are consistently out-performing Teofimo and not losing to fighters like George Kambosos Jr.
Nine figures = $100 million, and Teo claims that he’s made ESPN “over $100M” for his fights, so he feels he rates that kind of contract after his win over WBO light welterweight champion Josh Taylor last Saturday night at the Hula Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York.
In Teofimo’s recent fight against Sandor Martin, he was outboxed, knocked down twice, and given a highly controversial ten round split decision last December at Madison Square Garden. You hate to say it, but Teofimo did NOT perform at the level of a fighter deserving of a massive $100 million contract. He performed more like a guy that should be fighting on undercards for $50K.
Teo had also looked like a lower-level fighter in his two previous fights against Pedro Campa and George Kambosos.
“Only way you get Teofimo back is a nine-figure contract. I’ve made ESPN over $100m and getting paid $1m. Fighters that have not even done a quarter of what I’ve accomplished get $15m,” said Teofimo to The Porter Way Podcast.
This is more crazy talk from Teofimo, similar to his recent comments about him no longer fighting on ESPN because he didn’t like the way he was being criticized by the commentators for his performances over the last three years.
If Teofimo is going to try and force Top Rank to give him a $100 million contract to get him to come out of retirement, he’s probably wasting his time because they’re not going to do that.
It’s one thing for Teofimo to beat an old washed-up Josh Taylor and another thing for him to try and replicate that success against Regis Prograis, Devin Haney, Gervonta Davis, or Subriel Matias.
Top Rank boss Bob Arum isn’t talking about wanting to match Teofimo against Tank Davis, Matias, or Prograis. He wants to put him in with Haney, who received a lot of attention from his controversial twelve round decision win over Vasyl Lomachenko last May.
