Whoever wins when Vasiliy Lomachenko and Teofimo Lopez fight won’t owe the loser a rematch.
Lopez revealed last month that there isn’t a rematch clause in the contracts for their highly anticipated, 12-round lightweight title unification fight October 17 at MGM Grand Conference Center in Las Vegas (ESPN). Rematch clauses aren’t uncommon demands for established, favored champions that take on optional opponents, in this case Lomachenko.
Bob Arum, whose company promotes Lomachenko and Lopez, fundamentally opposed placing a rematch clause in their contracts. Arum claimed during a virtual press conference Tuesday that if their fight warrants a return encounter, Ukraine’s Lomachenko (14-1, 10 KOs) and Brooklyn’s Lopez (15-0, 12 KOs) eventually will agree to do it.
The 88-year-old Arum also criticized rival promoter Eddie Hearn for insisting on inserting rematch clauses in contracts when his favored fighters face optional opponents.
“I don’t believe in rematch clauses,” Arum said. “Rematch clauses are, in essence, overused thanks to our friend, Eddie Hearn. He puts a rematch clause in every contract, and that may indicate that he is not confident in how his fighter will perform. As far as I’m concerned, let them fight. There’ll be a winner, there’ll be a loser, and if down the road they want a rematch, that’s up to them. But I’m not requiring [it], and I don’t like to require a rematch in any contract that I do.”
It made sound business sense, of course, for Hearn to ensure that then-unbeaten superstar Anthony Joshua was guaranteed a second fight against Andy Ruiz Jr. in the event Ruiz upset him. England’s Joshua (23-1, 21 KOs) won back his IBF, IBO, WBA and WBO heavyweight titles in his immediate rematch with Ruiz (33-2, 22 KOs), who Joshua beat by unanimous decision six months after Ruiz pulled off one of the most noteworthy upsets in boxing history when he stopped the heavily favored Joshua in the seventh round of their June 2019 fight at Madison Square Garden in New York.
A rematch clause also will afford Dillian Whyte, another British heavyweight Hearn’s company promotes, an immediate opportunity to avenge his fifth-round knockout loss to Alexander Povetkin on August 22 in Brentwood, England. London’s Whyte (27-2, 18 KOs) and Russia’s Povetkin (36-2-1, 25 KOs) already are scheduled to fight again for the WBC interim title November 21 at an undetermined location in England.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
