{"id":584552,"date":"2026-04-04T07:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T07:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/584552\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T07:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T07:40:12","slug":"teofimo-lopez-lined-up-for-immediate-title-shot-despite-shakur-stevenson-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/584552\/","title":{"rendered":"Teofimo Lopez lined up for immediate title shot despite Shakur Stevenson loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Teofimo Lopez could be handed an immediate opportunity to bounce back in a major way following a one-sided defeat to Shakur Stevenson.<\/p>\n

Lopez put his WBO super-lightweight world title on the line against Stevenson back in January. Despite boasting a size advantage, the champion was thoroughly outclassed by the challenger, with Stevenson winning almost every round on the scorecards to become a four-weight world champion at just 28.<\/p>\n

Not long after the loss, Lopez announced that he would be moving up to welterweight to join a stacked division, complete with champions Devin Haney, Ryan Garcia, Lewis Crocker and Rolando Romero.<\/p>\n

Garcia had said previously that he would be fighting Lopez this summer, and, during a live stream this week, went as far as confirming the date of July 25 for the fight.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018King Ry\u2019 won the WBC belt by handily beating Mario Barrios<\/a> three weeks following Lopez-Stevenson. Though he has publicly targeted a unification fight with WBO champ Haney \u2013 a rematch following their controversial clash in 2023 \u2013 he appears to have settled on a voluntary defence against Lopez, who is not yet ranked in the division.<\/p>\n

The fight, however, is not official, and it would be a bold move for the WBC to allow yet another voluntary defence of their belt, with a mandatory fight not enforced in several years.<\/p>\n

Barrios was upgraded from interim to full champion in 2024, and made his first defence against number eight ranked Abel Ramos, retaining the belt with a draw.<\/p>\n

He then made another voluntary defence against returning Manny Pacquiao, drawing again to retain the title, before facing Garcia in yet another non-ordered bout. The sanctioning body made Conor Benn mandatory challenger at the beginning of this year.<\/p>\n

He fights next weekend in London against Regis Prograis in a catchweight bout at 150lbs<\/a>. Despite recently linking up with Zuffa Boxing \u2013 a promotional company intent on sidelining the major sanctioning bodies \u2013 the Brit says he will fight for the belt before the end of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teofimo Lopez could be handed an immediate opportunity to bounce back in a major way following a one-sided…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-584552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}