Teofimo Lopez seems to think a fight with unified welterweight titleholder Jaron “Boots” Ennis is locked in.
“I just wanted to get on here and let you all know, it’s happening. This fight is happening.” Lopez said in a FightHype video. “147-pound king, we’re coming for him!”
Lopez, the lineal champion at 140lbs and former champion at 135lbs, would be stepping up to his third weight division to take on Ennis, who owns the IBF, WBA and Ring Magazine titles at welterweight. Though Lopez has defeated Vasiliy Lomachenko and Josh Taylor as an underdog, Ennis might well be the biggest challenge of his career to date.
The fight isn’t officially set yet, mind you. Ennis has other options to consider. In the same FightHype video, Eddie Hearn, whose Matchroom Boxing promotes Ennis, said, “We’re in negotiations for Jaron to fight Teofimo [...] there is a date in August that we could be looking at, in Saudi Arabia.”
In the same breath, however, Hearn mentioned Ennis’ WBA mandatory challenger in Shakhram Giyasov, and also that a move to 154lbs is “inevitable.”
Lopez is hoping to land this fight despite a significant subplot to this still-potential matchup: his virulent racism of late. Lopez has said the N-word multiple times, is fast and loose with racially charged language, and made a video that suggested he sent bananas and a watermelon to Keyshawn Davis’ room before his fight with Denys Berinchyk. This led Davis to say in an Instagram video that he would never fight Lopez.
Lopez’s racism has earned him an investigation by the WBO, whose junior welterweight belt he possesses.
This is relevant for a potential Ennis-Lopez fight because Ennis is Black. Given Lopez’s remarks about or behavior toward other Black fighters like Davis, Terence Crawford, and Gervonta “Tank” Davis, if an Ennis-Lopez fight does materialize, Lopez figures to make the promotion toxic and inflammatory.
The X’s and O’s of a fight with Ennis don’t flatter Lopez either. Lopez was brilliant in dismissing Arnold Barboza on the otherwise dismal Times Square card on May 2, but he hasn’t shown the same power at 140lbs that he possessed at 135. Ennis, meanwhile, is a big 147-pounder with thunder in his fists and possesses a granite chin that has held up against longtime welterweights.
Regardless, Lopez has an impressive track record against lineal champions – he knocked Lomachenko from his pound-for-pound perch in 2020 and made Taylor look average in 2023.
Lopez now wants a chance to upset yet another king in a new weight class. Ennis will get to decide whether he deserves it.