Promoter Bob Arum reveals that he is working on a deal for Teofimo Lopez to face Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis on March 1, 2025, in a joint PPV on DAZN and ESPN.
Plan of Arum
Lance Pugmire @pugboxing reports that Top Rank boss Arum is negotiating the fight for Teofimo (21-1, 13 KOs) to move up to welterweight to challenge “Boots” Ennis (33-0, 29 KOs) for his IBF belt 147-lb. . It is doubtful that the fight will take place.
Teofimo recently spoke of being the “King of the 140 lb. division” and offered Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia a 55-45 split. The silence was deafening, and nothing came back.
If Arum offers a similar deal with Boots Ennis, it will be interesting to see if he accepts. His career isn’t looking too good after recent back-to-back miserable performances for Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing.
A desperate move for Teofimo
From Top Rank’s perspective, it’s understandable why they let Teofimo walk the plank for this risky fight; his career went belly up. They have to do something with Lopez because things seem desperate. He deserves losses to Jamaine Ortiz and Sandor Martin to go along with his defeat against George Kambosos. It looks shot.
If he doesn’t put Teofimo in Boots, he’ll probably lose to one of these no-name fringe contenders who keep matching him.
This would be the first major fight for two-division world champion Lopez, 27, since his win over Vasily Lomachenko on October 17, 2020. It’s been four years since Teofimo defeated Lomachenko by a 12-round unanimous decision , and these are insignificant battles he has had since:
– Steve Claggett
– Giamane Ortiz
– Josh Taylor
– Sandor Martin
– Peter Campa
– George Cambosos Jr
None of those six fights resonated with the boxing public, and Lopez has seen his once-skyrocketing popularity drop to the point where he’s largely irrelevant. Teofimo is seen by fans as a strange character, who sounds scrambled in interviews and inconsistent in his performances. He fights as if he had no more sense.
Is Ennis a bust?
If Ennis is anything like what she did in her recent fight against Karen Chukhadzhian on November 9th, Teofimo has an excellent chance of beating her because she is too hard hitting. Karen did Boots like a novice, schooling him for nine rounds before gassing out.
Hearn is likely to pursue the idea of matching Ennis against Lopez because that could be the best thing for him before his contract expires. It has to sorry to sign Boots because he missed in his two fights for Hearn against Chukhadzhian and David Avanesyan. If Ennis loses, at least it will be against a name fighter.
Boots made matters worse by choosing not to accept the offer to fight Vergil Ortiz Jr. for his interim WBC 154-lb title on the massive Feb. 22 card in Riyadh. This move showed Ennis’ lack of ambition and ability to take risks.
