The American boxer Teofimo Lopez has gone viral this week after aiming shots on social media at his employer Turki Alashikh.
After signing a deal with Turki earlier in the year, the WBO super lightweight champion had potentially some of the biggest fights in boxing lined up for the Riyadh season.
This was until he decided to call his employer ‘the d***tator’, which has seemed to push him to the exit under Turki, who had plans of making the Devin Haney fight and potentially Jaron Ennis, but he looks to be moving up in weight, which could see the fight dwindle.
Turki did seem to respond cryptically on ‘Maturity is to realise, most things don’t deserve a reaction.’
Shortly after this Teofimo Lopez posted ‘I just got fired, guys’ along with ‘However before things get better, bad things must happen first! #Resurrection.’
What’s Next For Teofimo Lopez?
After his punch perfect win against Arnold Barbosa Jr in Times Square the boxing fans were very much looking forward to seeing more of Lopez, especially after only fighting twice in 2024 against Steve Claggett and Jermaine Ortiz.
With the IBF Super lightweight title being fought for between Richardson Hitchins and George Kambosos in Madison Square, that is also another potential bout for Lopez in Riyadh season.
Lopez’s only pro loss came at the hands of the Australian back in 2021, so that could give him motivation to potentially make up with Turki, especially if Kambosos gets past Hitchins next month.
There is also still the WBC taken up by Alberto Puello and the WBA taken up by Gary Russell, which both could be potential fights if Lopez wanted to go undisputed in the division.
He also seems to be sticking to his guns as he continues to take shots at Turki after going live on Instagram and saying that he’s not apologising in another viral video.
With an array of opportunities for Lopez, it’ll be interesting too see whether he goes back on his word and apologise to Turki as he still has a couple of fights left on his contract.
The Devin Haney fight seems to be the most talked about fight after his win on the same Times Square card, but with the Ryan Garcia rematch in the mix the doors seem to be shut for now.
Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images
