“He was just a dad,” Najee Lopez said with a sigh. “He was a great dad. That’s who trained me. That’s who taught me the game. My whole life. That’s who had me before he passed away.”
Lopez admits that after he lost his father, Tito, he also lost his love of boxing.
Darkness replaced the light of a shared passion that had also taken Najee’s siblings to the gym in Atlanta.
“I actually didn’t want to box,” he recalled of his start in the sport. “In the neighborhood … I just used to street-fight and stuff like that with the kids. My dad used to lace up gloves. We had a little dirt patch in front of my building. The kids used to just be out there with boxing gloves. And then my dad took me to the gym because my brother was going. I just went to the gym and that’s kind of where it started. I was like eight, nine years old. I really didn’t want to box, but it became fun at first and I just stuck to it.”
Lopez, so proud of his Puerto Rican roots, grew up in Atlanta but now trains with Marc Farrait in Florida.
The light heavyweight contender Lopez is ranked favorably by all four governing bodies, but he admits gelling with Farrait took a while given the bond he shared with his father.
“When my dad passed, the next year I found Marc,” said the 26-year-old Lopez. “Me and Marc locked in. I’ve been training with Mark ever since. At first, we definitely had to find that chemistry. We had to find that rhythm. Then, as soon as we locked in, we just built. But I had to learn him, and he had to learn me. Then it was just magic.”
Lopez has built his career foundation on ProBox TV. He’s 15-0 (12 KOs) and on Friday will face Manuel Gallegos at the Osceloa Heritage Park in Kissimmee, Florida.
Gallegos, a puncher from Mexico, poses a threat. He’s 22-3-1 with 19 early wins, holds an upset victory over Khalil Coe (before losing a rematch) and was stopped by Diego Pacheco. Gallegos is clearly just fine testing unbeaten prospects.
But Lopez is the favorite, even if he has no desire to look beyond Friday’s main event.
“It feels really good, man,” he said, having seen his spot at the top of the bill. “It’s just something I’ve been working for, something that we’ve been working for the whole time. I’m just ready.”
Is he ready to level up further still?
“Man, one fight at a time. I’m not looking past Gallegos. Just one fight at a time. I’m just focused on Friday night.”
Rather than consider what might come next, Lopez has been combing through all the tape he can find of his opponent. Asked whether he studies film of his rivals, he answers in a way that indicates he’s already sick at the sight of Gallegos.
“Oh, man, that’s all I do, is homework,” he said, nodding.
Then he shares his thoughts on his opponent.
“Very tough guy, tough fighter. Kind of what you see is what you get, you know what I’m saying?” Lopez said. “But, like I said, one fight at a time. My plan is just to keep getting better and keep looking better and better every time I get out there.”
He won’t commit to an answer about whether Gallegos is the best he has faced so far, but Lopez said he will happily answer the question on Saturday.
And despite having had just 15 pro fights, he is clearly confident in both his ability and the experiences he has already come through.
“I’ve seen it all,” Lopez says twice in quick succession. “I’ve been boxing my whole life. [Gallegos] is not a craftsman. He’s just tough. He’s going to come to fight, for sure. He’s going to come out there and let his hands go. I’ve got to be on point defensively. Mentally, I just got to be ready for war because I know he’s coming with it, for sure. But it ain’t nothing I haven’t seen before.”
Lopez is relishing his name headlining the fight’s artwork. He enjoys the spotlight, the attention, and he’s clearly enjoying the journey to the top of the 175lbs division.
“It’s a good pressure,” he said. “It’s a real good pressure.”
Lopez also draws confidence from being in a busy gym. The likes of Erickson Lubin, Edgar Berlanga and Friday’s co-main, Dominic Valle, all work with Farrait in one of boxing’s underrated stables.
Lopez believes Farrait and the fighters will get their credit “in due time.
“Everybody got to make their own way, but we do got one hell of a stable,” he said, grinning.
“It’s definitely a lot of talent out there.”
Is Lopez the best of the lot?
“Yeah, I’m the best guy around,” he replies without hesitation.
He feels like he has everything he needs to be the best in the world, it’s just a matter of sharpening tools and getting ring-time experience.
Experience, Najee informs, is the best teacher.
“Every time I go out there, I just learn from my mistakes and just keep adding, keep getting better, keep getting more composed, keep getting more disciplined in that ring. I feel like I’m a complete fighter. I ain’t gonna lie. I can do it all.”
But where Valle has the edge on Lopez is with his fame away from the ring, as a model for the likes of ASOS, Nike and Calvin Klein.
Asked whether he could follow Valle’s path, Lopez bashfully covers his face and then smiles.
“Oh, man. Damn. I don’t know, man. I want to model, though. I think I could. I honestly think I could model, but I ain’t going in that lane yet. I ain’t found that lane yet. [And] it ain't find me.”
But Lopez is happy for Valle’s success.
“I just enjoy seeing him [do well],” he said. “I seen him on a billboard in New York one time. I’m like, ‘Dang,’ you know what I’m saying? That’s hard. That’s lit.”
But Lopez is not far from the big time himself – but from using his fists rather than his face.
Being linked to a fight with Artur Beterbiev last year shows he is on the radar of people who matter.
“[The Beterbiev fight] was close enough for me to be like, ‘Damn, we’re gonna fight.’ But it didn’t follow through. But it just let me know I’m on my way. It definitely let me know I’m on my way. I’m almost there. Just keep winning, keep pushing, keep working hard. I’m doing something right.”
When Lopez talks about the top of the division, he already uses the word “us,” grouping himself with the likes of Beterbiev, Dmitry Bivol and David Benavidez.
Although he knows his longer-term future likely lies at 200lbs, he hopes it will include fights back home in Atlanta, at the State Farm Arena or Mercedes-Benz Stadium. He would also like to fight in Puerto Rico, but he thinks a sizable Puerto Rican contingent would come to Atlanta to watch him.
Lopez, by this point in the conversation, is content to talk about the future, but he knows that will be shaped by what happens on Friday night in Florida.
He also knows that the business side of the sport is often more precarious than the fighting side.
“Oh, man,” he says, dropping his head into his hands. “It’s kind of like … where I come from, man, it’s kind of like the streets. Tough. The business of boxing, man, it’s a lot of guys that’s cutthroat. I could say this, it ain’t for the faint of heart. Especially like the way boxing is nowadays. [If] you lose. … You know what I’m saying? [If] you get caught up in the wrong contract. It’s a lot of things that go into it that may not work in your favor. That’s why I said it’s tough. But, honestly, I feel like I’ve definitely been on a good path. Shout out to ProBox, Garry Jonas. But the business of boxing, definitely, it’s tricky. Definitely tricky. Boxing is almost looking like it’s breaking up and it’s breaking up into two.”
With that, Lopez finishes lacing on his bandages. He has work to do in the ring on Friday before any other business can be addressed. The dreams of packed arenas in Atlanta and Puerto Rico need to be pushed from his mind. He needs to draw strength from the memory of his father having left that dark and lonely period when there was little there for him apart from boxing. And he needs to do what Najee Lopez says he does best.
“This is what I’ve been working for,” he says, smiling. “It’s my time now.”
Tris Dixon covered his first amateur boxing fight in 1996. The former editor of Boxing News, he has written for a number of international publications and newspapers, including GQ and Men’s Health, and is a board member for the Ringside Charitable Trust and the Ring of Brotherhood. He has been a broadcaster for TNT Sports and hosts the popular “Boxing Life Stories” podcast. Dixon is a British Boxing Hall of Famer, an International Boxing Hall of Fame elector, a BWAA award winner, and is the author of five boxing books, including “Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing” (shortlisted for the William Hill Sportsbook of the Year), “Warrior: A Champion’s Search for His Identity” (shortlisted for the Sunday Times International Sportsbook of the Year) and “The Road to Nowhere: A Journey Through Boxing’s Wastelands.” You can reach him @trisdixon on X and Instagram.
