November 27th at Animaniacs Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden, now former champion Teófimo López from Brooklyn, put his unified WBA, IBF, WBO, and The Ring lightweight belts against George Kambosos Jr. from Sydney, Australia.In an IBF mandatory challenger that Kambosos earned with a split decision victory earlier against Lee Selby. Lopez lost to Kambosos Jr via split decision.
Coming into the bout both of the boxers had beautiful undefeated records. Lopez was the champion and had just come off one of the most impressive victories in his career with a unanimous decision victory over Vasyl Lomachenko. Lopez’s record was 16-0, Kambosos Jr. was 19-0, so one of them was going to have to lose.
According to BetMGM, Teofimo Lopez coming in was a -1000 favorite to win, while Kambosos Jr. was a +650 underdog.
This fight has had its promotion controversy for the buildup. The fight has been rescheduled a handful of times and was eventually pulled by its original promoter Triller to then officially be bought and scheduled through DAZN. The fight also had to be postponed for Lopez testing positive for Covid-19 in the summer.
This fight is just a huge setback for the American’s career. He had huge names to fight next to defend his belts against and showcase his skills and he overlooked his opponent. I don’t think he thought it was going to be a decisive fight when he was talking in the presser about getting a first-round knockout. I think he just didn’t fight a point fight to outstrike or be more aggressive he instead went more for a counter later on for one punch to put Kambosos down but alas it was not enough as he got back up and still won the fight.
