ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Orlando native Geo \u201cLa Roca\u201d Lopez is preparing to return to the ring in October after more than a year away from boxing because of an anterior cruciate ligament and surgery.<\/p>\n
Lopez, 22, is unbeaten as a professional boxer with an 18-0 record and 12 knockouts.<\/p>\n
He is known for a powerful punch that helped inspire his nickname.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a punch he\u2019s been learning since he was little as a southpaw,\u201d said Don Roca, Lopez\u2019s father and trainer. \u201cHe\u2019s able to knock people out with one punch, so we call it \u2018La Roca.\u2019 We call it \u2018The Elevator,\u2019 too, because it will take you down to the basement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lopez said the nickname fits his style in the ring.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can tell by my knockouts, too, that I hit like a rock,\u201d Lopez said.<\/p>\n
The young boxer was on the rise last year and preparing for a fight against former world champion Ren\u00e9 Alvarado when he suffered a knee injury during training.<\/p>\n
He said that the movement that caused it was something he had done many times in the past.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t the training or nothing. It was a perfect storm,\u201d Lopez said. \u201cI didn\u2019t know that I had a torn ACL, and I had a fight literally like the next month after, and I won by unanimous decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lopez had ACL surgery three months after the fight. He said the early part of his recovery was the most difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hardest part was the first two weeks,\u201d Lopez said. \u201cI probably slept, at the most, three hours during the day because it was a lot of pain. It was hard. There (were) good days and bad days, but I trusted God and I put all my faith in him.\u201d<\/p>\n
After more than a year of rehabilitation and training, Lopez said the scar from surgery is now a reminder of what he has overcome.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt reminds me of what I\u2019ve been through, and it gives me strength to keep on moving forward and keep on going,\u201d Lopez said.<\/p>\n
Don Roca said he is looking forward to seeing his son compete again after the long layoff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked him the other day, \u2018What do you miss the most?\u2019 Because he hasn\u2019t boxed in over a year,\u201d Roca said. \u201cI thought he was going to say going inside the ring or the paycheck, and he said, \u2018To lay hands on the opponent and punch somebody in the face, I really miss that.\u2019 So, I\u2019m happy to see him perform and do things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Orlando native Geo \u201cLa Roca\u201d Lopez is preparing to return to the ring in October…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1238,274,29088,12825,1236,2204,115,139,141,140,110,1237,278,2032,835],"class_list":["post-366145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-sports","tag-app-top-stories","tag-boxing","tag-brandon-green","tag-florida-sports","tag-instagram-n13","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}