WBA, IBF, WBC Franchise, WBO lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez is not steering away from a potential fight with division rival Devin Haney, who holds the WBC's "regular" title at 135-pounds.
Haney views himself as the "real" WBC champion - and he's issued a direct challenge to Lopez to set the record straight.
Lopez has some business to take care of, with the IBF ordering him to make a mandatory defense against George Kambosos.
Lopez and the Kambosos have been unable to reach an agreement, which forced the sanctioning body to schedule a purse bid for February 18th.
If he overcomes Kambosos, Lopez is ready to face Haney before the end of the year.
And because of Haney's verbal digs in recent interviews, Lopez makes it clear that he wants to punish him with a brutal knockout ending.
"It would start off as a technical fight, but in the mid-rounds, toward the end of the rounds I'll put him on his ass. Devin is the type of person, to me, that I want to knock out. I'm coming in with bad intentions the whole time. It's been too much talk; the thing about me is when you talk too much about me, I put you on my hit list. It'd be an intriguing, interesting fight for everybody to watch -- two young, hungry fighters," Lopez said to ESPN.
"I look at it like this: None of those guys fight like Loma. Loma was a true technician who knows what he's doing in the ring. I know Devin. He tries to do a lot like Floyd [Mayweather]; he tries to compare himself to "Pretty Boy" Floyd. I know he'll always be on the back foot and in defense mode. That I already expect. Devin isn't the kind of fighter that presses; he's more of the type to catch and shoot, take his time, counterpunch.
"What a lot of people don't know is I'm very smart when I'm in there. I'm a technician. I'm like Albert Einstein, I'm just calculating everything. I'm downloading everything that you're doing. Since me and Devin sparred in the past, things have changed; we've progressed and gotten better. It'll be very nice to see that. I like challenges. I don't think that's a full challenge for me, but it's definitely a fight that everybody wants to watch, and I'm all about the fans."
