Beating Richard Commey next month would earn Teofimo Lopez his first world title, the lightweight championship Vasiliy Lomachenko stipulated Lopez needs to warrant fighting him.

Capturing the IBF 135-pound crown won’t guarantee, however, that a Lomachenko-Lopez fight would happen next. Lopez is only “50 percent” confident that Lomachenko will agree to face him in a lightweight title unification fight if Lopez overcomes Commey on December 14 at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Promoter Bob Arum, whose company promotes Lomachenko and Lopez, has repeatedly mentioned Lomachenko moving back down to 130 pounds at some point in 2020 because the Ukrainian southpaw is a small lightweight. Arum also has stated that he wants to make Lomachenko-Lopez if Lopez (14-0, 11 KOs) gets by Commey (29-2, 26 KOs), but Lopez paid close attention to all the talk of Lomachenko (14-1, 10 KOs) dropping down to the junior lightweight limit.

“I’m not surprised at all,” Lopez told BoxingScene.com. “It makes me laugh, but I’m not surprised. Honestly, everyone has their hopes that Commey wins. I know the fans want the Loma and Lopez fight. I know for damn sure the fight fans want it, the casual fans, they all want that type of fight. But when it comes to business, we’ve gotta just see, man.

“You know, one fight at a time, one guy at a time. And I’m just trying to make the best fights happen for the fans. That’s really what I’m doing. Loma told me, ‘Get a belt and we’ll make the fight happen.’ Well, Commey’s the guy. Beat him and I got the belt. We’ll see what happens from there. We’ll see if he’s a man of his word.”

The 31-year-old Lomachenko owns the WBA and WBO lightweight titles and is the WBC’s franchise champion at 135 pounds. He previously held the WBO 130-pound title.

Meanwhile, Brooklyn’s Lopez emphasized that he is fully focused on facing Ghana’s Commey, a hard-hitting champion who represents the toughest test of Lopez’s three-year pro career.

“How confident am I for it [happening]?,” Lopez said regarding facing Lomachenko. “Fifty percent. Let’s see what happens after the Commey fight. Let’s see what actually starts going down. I’m gonna let my manager, Dave McWater, take control of that while I’m with my wife on vacation for like a week or two. I’m gonna have my manager handle all that and by the time I come back, we’ll figure out the numbers, see what’s going on and he’ll let me know. We’ll go from there. As of right now, though, the main thing is beating Richard Commey. That’s the guy that is in front of me right now, and I know that. Honestly, this is huge, man. I didn’t notice it. I am now. This is big, man.”

ESPN will televise the Commey-Lopez bout before a main event that’ll feature Terence Crawford, the WBO welterweight champion. Crawford (35-0, 26 KOs), of Omaha, Nebraska, will make a mandatory defense of his 147-pound crown versus Lithuania’s Egidijus Kavaliauskas (21-0-1, 17 KOs).

The 22-year-old Lopez hopes a victory over Commey leads directly to a fight against another top pound-for-pound performer. He’s just less optimistic about boxing Lomachenko in his first fight of 2020 than he was earlier this year.

“It’s 50 percent, man,” Lopez said. “You never know, man. You just never know what these guys are capable of doing. They’re their own man at the end of the day. They make their own decisions. I just wanna fight the toughest guys out there, or the best guys that everyone thinks that there are. I love competition, so for me, I’m a fighter. I’m just gonna go out there and do what I’m known to do, and what I’m capable of doing. I wanna prove to not only myself, but to everyone out there, that I am asking for these tough fights. I’m not there picking and choosing.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.