Teofimo Lopez was more than willing to fight Josh Taylor in Scotland.
It turns out that Lopez won’t have to take that transatlantic trip for a shot at the Scottish southpaw’s WBO junior welterweight title. BoxingScene.com has confirmed that Taylor (19-0, 13 KOs) has agreed to defend his 140-pound championship against Lopez (18-1, 13 KOs), a former unified lightweight champion, on June 10 in New York.
Their 12-round bout will be broadcast by ESPN from either Madison Square Garden or Hulu Theater, MSG’s smaller venue downstairs from the main arena. The preference of Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc., which promotes Taylor and Lopez, is to stage Taylor-Lopez at Madison Square Garden, which can accommodate more than 20,000 fans for boxing.
The availability of the bigger building will depend on whether the Knicks and/or Rangers are alive in the NBA and NHL playoffs, respectively. Hulu Theater can hold approximately 5,300 for boxing.
ESPN’s Mark Kriegel and Mike Coppinger first reported Thursday afternoon that Taylor and Lopez have agreed to fight.
The unbeaten Taylor, 32, was supposed to box England’s Jack Catterall in a 12-round rematch March 4 at OVO Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland. Their fight was postponed again last month due to a Taylor’s foot injury, which is not expected to prevent him from having a full training camp prior to his showdown with Lopez.
Taylor ultimately decided to face Lopez instead because it’s a higher-profile fight for more money. The former fully unified junior welterweight champion was permitted to arrange another fight, rather than rescheduling the Catterall rematch again, because there was not language in their contracts that protected Catterall (26-1, 13 KOs) in the event that their second fight was postponed.
Taylor wanted to face Catterall a second time due to the criticism he received following his debatable split-decision victory over Catterall in their 12-rounder last February 26 at OVO Hydro. Catterall dropped Taylor in the eighth round, but Taylor narrowly won on two scorecards (114-112, 113-112, 112-113).
Though he defended the IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO belts against Catterall, Taylor has since given up the IBF, WBA and WBC crowns.
Lopez, meanwhile, will get his shot to become a champion in a second weight class.
The 25-year-old Brooklyn native is 2-0 since Australia’s George Kambosos Jr. (20-2, 10 KOs) upset him by split decision in November 2021 at MSG’s Hulu Theater. Lopez got up from a flash knockdown during the second round to edge Spanish southpaw Sandor Martin (40-3, 13 KOs) by split decision in his last fight, a 10-rounder December 10 at Madison Square Garden.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.