By Mark Vester
Juan Manuel Lopez is expecting a very tough fight when he moves up to featherweight to face WBO champion Steven Luevano on January 23. Luevano feels that Juanma's camp is underestimating him but the Puerto Rican fighter appears to be taking the fight very seriously.
"He's a very good boxer. He's a tough boxer and he moves around a lot, so we have to work real hard to do what we want to do. I expect a real good fight," Juanma told BoxingScene.com's Ernest Gabion.
In his last fight, Juanma was taken to the limit by Rogers Mtagwa. He took many of the early and middle rounds but ran out of steam near the end and was nearly stopped in the championship rounds. Juanma told BoxingScene that he was hurt near the end and had to gut it out to survive.
"All I can think is 'thank God it's over.' I was definately hurt. He hit me real good in the eleventh round. In the twelfth I didn't get over it and that's why it was such a tough twelfth round. I just wanted it to be finally over but it was a good experience. It was a tough fight. A lot of people expected it to be easy. We didn't. We knew it was going to be a tough fight and we prepared for it and that's why we were able to finish. We were ready for that kind of fight," Juanma said.
He now put the Mtagwa performance behind him and wants to make a big push at featherweight.
"126, a lot of big names are there. [Yuriorkis] Gamboa is up there. A lot of big names and a lot of possibilities for big fights there," Juanma said.
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