BOXING
Teófimo López game for Pitbull, Tank, or Crawford
After a bland performance in his win against Steve Claggett, the WBO super lightweight champ called out Isaac Cruz, Gervonta Davis, and Terence Crawford.
Maybe Teófimo López took one too many blows to the head in that bland win over Steve Claggett, but in his post fight interview, he confirmed that Isaac Cruz, Gervonta Davis, and Terence Crawford are potential fights, and even argued that he would have no trouble with any of them.
Noting that Isaac Cruz has a very similar come-forward style as Claggett, López said, “I’m ready for it, man, I’m excited. Now I know how to face fighters like that even better. Just more conditioning, more track work, and that’s it.”
Um, excuse me? Boxing isn’t a track meet. Yes, you need a good engine, but if a boxer thinks that they can simply outlast Pitbull on engine alone, then there is a hard fall waiting for them.
But it wasn’t simply Isaac Cruz who got called out, but also Gervonta Davis and Terence Crawford. “These are the type of fights that I want. Nobody is going to fight as tough as Steve Claggett. There’s only one other fighter who maybe might do it a small bit and he’s smaller and that’s pit-bull, Cruz. Other than that every other fighter you can think of don’t fight that way. They all box. Crawford boxes. Whether it’s orthodox, whether it’s southpaw, he boxes. He doesn’t really slug in there.”
As for Tank, López called him a punk and said, “Tank hasn’t faced fighters like this in a long time. Isaac Cruz is the only one, and gave him until 12 rounds and a lot of people felt like he lost.”
Shifting gears to address the elephant in the room, namely López’s lackluster performance against a borderline journeyman like Claggett, he said, “God makes me sometimes look sub par, if it has to be that case, so these other chumps could come in and jump in. I don’t care. I’m going to get my hand raised. I guarantee you that.”
Maybe it was the thumping shots that Claggett gave López in the ring, or maybe he actually believed the ludicrous clean sweep that the ringside judges gave him on the scorecards, but Teófimo López is in trouble if any of the three fighters that he called out actually call his bluff.