Teofimo Lopez Jr. credits his focus on the midsection of Josh Taylor as a key reason why he became a two-division titlist.
The 25-year-old former unified lightweight champion silenced his critics last Saturday night at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City, with a unanimous decision over Scotland’s Taylor to capture the WBO 140-pound belt.
Taylor got off to a good start, but Lopez gradually took over, until, by the end, it appeared the Honduran-American could even stop a fighter long regarded as the kingpin of the junior welterweight class.
In a recent interview, Lopez said he believes his body shots did considerable damage on Taylor. Indeed, there were moments throughout the fight where the southpaw Taylor visibly reacted to Lopez’s punches to the torso.
“Roy Jones Jr. once said, it’s not that these guys are not good, it’s just that we make it look easy,” Lopez said on The Porter Way Podcast. “So, you know, it’s just really that. Body shot, that’s what I focused on. I know how to break him down, some how, some way. Towards mid-way of the fight, I was like, I gotta start slowing him down, so let me go to the body and attack more. And it made it much easier for me.”
Lopez said he tried his best to stop Taylor but conceded that the former undisputed 140-pound champion knew “how to survive.”
“I went for it when I had to. Taylor’s a big guy. He knows how to survive because of his experience. I think he was going in that ring at like 165 [pounds], big boy. I tried to crack him and everything but he knew how to survive. He knew how to clinch. He was holding on for dear life. But that comes with the experience that these guys have. They’re vets.”
Immediately after the fight, Taylor suggested he would move up to 147.
Lopez vacated the WBO title on Thursday and claims he has retired from boxing.
Sean Nam is the author of Murder on Federal Street: Tyrone Everett, the Black Mafia, and the Last Golden Age of Philadelphia Boxing.