Via Dan Ambrose: Teofimo Lopez warns Ryan Garcia that he will “put him to sleep” if the two fight by the end of the year.
Assuming Teofimo is not permanently scarred from his loss to George Kambosos Jr last November, he will have a great chance of beating Ryan Garcia.
Teofimo is bigger, stronger, sturdier and has fought better opponents than Ryan so far. Given the money Ryan makes from his social network, it’s not a shock that he was chosen to avoid fighting risky opponents.
Ryan’s promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, impressed with his efforts to create a fight between Kingry and Gervonta ‘The Tank’ Davis. So now De La Hoya has turned his attention to 25-year-old former unified lightweight champion Teofimo (16-1, 12 KOs).
With Ryan Garcia and De La Hoya, you won’t know how serious they are about fighting together against Teofimo. Ryan often talks about wanting to fight the leading opposition but then never does.
If Ryan (23-0, 19 KOs) is at the level of wanting to fight Teofimo, it will come as a surprise because his mode of action is to call out big names like Tank Davis, Devin Haney, Vasyl Lomachenko and Manny Pacquiao , and then fight with a lower level scrub.
If Ryan beats Teofimo forcefully, it will show the boxing world that he’s actually 140 years old and not just an Instagram boxer.
Teofimo will face Pedro Campa (34-1-1, 23 KOs) this Saturday, August 13, at Resorts World Las Vegas on ESPN and ESPN+. This is Teo’s first match since losing the title in a surprise loss to George Kambosos Jr last November.
Top Rank picked an easy opponent for Teofimo to take down on Saturday with their pick being 30-year-old Campa. If Teofimo can’t beat this guy, he needs to call it a day.
Ryan is about to have a sixth round knockout win over Javier Fortuna last July. Fortuna was dropped three times during the fight, which was an idea for Ryan.
Fortuna was recently defeated by Joseph ‘Jojo’ Diaz last year, and that drew much interest in the Garcia-Fortuna fight. Ryan worked doubly hard on promoting the Fortuna fight by the name of Tank Davis’ throughout the build.
