Teófimo López: ‘Anything that has haunted me from the past, I’ve let all those things go’ | Teófimo López
TEófimo López’s boxing career unfolded in messy extremes, and few places have captured those contradictions like Madison Square Garden. This is the building where he took on Richard Commey in straight sets to win his first world title at the age of 22, saw his fast track to superstar status abruptly derailed as heavy favorite, then returned two years later to dismantle Josh Taylor as an underdog and establish himself as a two-division champion. On Saturday night, as he defends his junior welterweight title against Shakur Stevenson in a clash between arguably the two best American fighters active today, the Garden could finally make it clear which version of López is here to stay.
“That’s the magnitude of it,” says López, one of boxing’s most charismatic and dynamic personalities, filling my screen with effortless third-person heat and bravado during the final days of his training camp in Hollywood, Florida. “Who is really going to set the tone for the sport? You have Shakur Stevenson, who wants that stick, and you have Teófimo López who thinks he is the best representation of boxing.”
He adds: “My goal is to make boxing great again and you can only do that by giving the fans what they want. This is the biggest fight you can fight today and we both deserve credit for achieving that.”
His take on Saturday’s game sounds like hyperbole, but it might even be true. Stevenson, a three-weight champion at 126 lbs, 130 lbs and 135 lbs from Newark, New Jersey, and the best defensive virtuoso of the current generation, makes the short trip across the Hudson with the reputation of a fighter whose style has not yet been fully tested. His impeccable mastery of distance and pace has made one elite opponent after another more hesitant than hopeful, while no one in 24 paying fights has yet managed to drag him into prolonged discomfort. In contrast, López, a former unified 135-pound champion and holder of the lineal 140-pound world title since beating Taylor in 2023, has built his brand on forcing moments of truth: thriving in those flash points where the structure and geometry of a fight break down and instinct takes over.
This contrast helps explain both López’s broad appeal and his inherent unpredictability. Born in Brooklyn to Honduran parents and raised in Florida, he turned professional as a teenager through a contract with Top Rank Promotions after narrowly missing out on representing the United States at the 2016 Olympics, where he instead competed for Honduras. He then rose through the lightweight ranks through a blend of shock power, showmanship and near-nuclear self-confidence, taking his place on the world stage with a one-punch destruction of veteran Mason Menard in his 11th fight, also at the Garden. Not afraid of tough talk, he gravitated toward the role of provocateur from the start, his nickname (“The Takeover”) a nod to his disruptive career ambitions.
At 28 years old, López has already experienced several careers in one. Toppling the imperious Vasiliy Lomachenko in 2020, then boxing’s pound-for-pound king, should have been a coronation. Instead, it marked the start of a discordant second act: a shock split decision defeat to unheralded Sydneysider George Kambosos Jr after a 407-day layoff that knocked him out of the division, two tone-deaf performances at the finish at 140 pounds, then a sudden return to form against Scot Taylor. This oscillation between confidence and confusion – a nagging tendency to fight against his competitors – has become the accepted narrative of his career, even if he disputes its premise. “Of course, there will be times when you look vulnerable,” says López. “Maybe it could just be my mentality. But my CV says it all in the sense that I always aim for the toughest opposition.”
It’s true. When the challenge seems greatest – when the opponent is elite and the stakes are unmistakable – the chaos around López often gave way to clarity once the bell rang. His focus tends to sharpen rather than fray in these moments, a pattern that could bode well for Saturday night, when he comes out close to 3-1 against Stevenson.
Much of this volatility has roots far beyond the bright lights. López grew up in the orbit of a father who is both his coach and his staunchest defender, a man shaped by a family history marked by violence, loss and upheaval that spans generations. Boxing became a stabilizing force early on. López was six years old when he first bled at the gym, needing stitches after a training accident, and he often said the sport came to him faster than most – the exercises learned in days rather than months.
He insists that the wild shapeshifting that defined him is a thing of the past. “I just want to show the consistency that comes out of Teófimo going forward,” López said. “You won’t see any of these hiccups anymore. Everything that haunted me in the past, I’ve let go of all those things.”
This turmoil has spread beyond the ring, taking the form of a long list of controversies, many of his own making. López spent long periods inactive, feuding publicly with his promoter and fighting many of his battles on social media rather than on the ropes. He has been condemned for inciting anger with racist remarks in interviews and some hard-R’s in live broadcasts, erratic behavior online and inflammatory comments aimed at his opponents, while personal upheavals – including a protracted divorce and reported rifts with his management team – have only deepened the instability. The pattern is familiar: brilliant flashes followed by prolonged drifts, with López often his toughest opponent. “I’m not racist, okay!” he said to me with a broad smile and falsely serious indignation. “I’m not a fucking racist!”
Stevenson presents a different type of examination. A silver medalist at the 2016 Rio Olympics, the 28-year-old southpaw is considered boxing’s purest technician around, a demanding craftsman whose discipline and patience have rarely been put under significant strain, drawing cautious but credible comparisons to Mayweather and Crawford. López respects this foundation, but he also believes that it has limits. “It’s like with construction workers: some things won’t always go as planned,” he says. “You have to be creative in this. You can’t just throw the same things over and over again. And I don’t see that creativity in Shakur, at least not yet.”
This conviction, that discipline ends up creating its own constraints, is at the heart of Saturday’s meeting. Stevenson’s advantage has never been about dominance in the obvious sense. It’s about anticipation, staying just enough ahead of the competition so that opponents start reacting rather than initiating it. The danger, for anyone facing it, is that patience can begin to look like passivity.
When asked where he thinks Stevenson is least comfortable, López doesn’t hesitate. “Everywhere,” he says, before returning to the paths that shaped them. “I was with Top Rank. We were stablemates. They picked every opposition for Shakur. Teófimo didn’t get that treatment. I had to learn on the job.”
Rather than dwelling on grievances, López sees difference as formative. He sees himself as the product of exposure rather than isolation: a fighter who learned by being placed in difficult situations early and often. On Saturday, he thinks those experiences will make the difference.
The last few years have forced López to confront himself as much as any opponent. He has spoken openly about periods of depression and self-doubt, including a crisis that followed his decisive victory over Lomachenko and took place amid promotional turmoil and more than 400 days of inactivity. Becoming a father in 2021 marked a turning point, giving him a perspective that now supports his ambition rather than competing with it.
Despite their shared promotional lineage, López says he never viewed Stevenson as an inevitable rival. “It just happened,” he said. “I’m not one to back down from a competitive fight. Now we’re here, and I can’t wait to show him that I’m really about my business.”
What López wants to understand above all is that he believes his presence serves a larger purpose. “I’m really good at sports,” he says. “I’m good for the next generation to come. I don’t want this for me. I want this for those who come after me.”
This sense of responsibility has deepened since he became a father. When asked if being a parent has changed the way he views winning and losing, López responds without hesitation. “As a father, you have already won,” he said. “Everything else just adds water to my cup.”
His son, Teófimo López V, now four years old, has changed the way he thinks about the image he presents, both inside and outside the ring. “I can’t be here looking like a bad representation,” he said. “Not just for him, but for all the other young kids who look up to me.”
If López wants to overturn the odds and keep his title, it will not be because the fight dissolves, but because he bends it to his will. Saturday’s intrigue lies less in who has the cleaner technique and more in whether discipline or disruption will yield first. Boxing rarely offers matchups at the elite level where both fighters can plausibly claim to reveal something fundamental about the other. This is one of them.
When asked what he hopes his son will one day understand about him as a boxer, López’s answer falls with atypical gravity, drawing on the philosophy that has shaped both the arc of his journey and the nature of Saturday’s fight. “You have to fight for what is right,” he said. “If you ever choose an easy route, choose hard. You get a better experience by choosing difficult rather than easy.”
