By Ryan Burton
Vasiliy Lomachenko returns to the ring this Saturday in Los Angeles against his mandatory challenger Anthony Crolla. The fight will be streamed live on the ESPN+ app.
One interested observer of the fight is rising lightweight contender Teofimo Lopez. The young upstart and his father/trainer Teofimo Lopez Sr. have been calling Lomachenko out for close to a year.
Since making those comments, Lopez has been asked several times about the potential fight by the media. He expects more of the same when he is ringside at the Staples Center in Los Angeles Saturday night.
“When I go to LA next week I am going to hear the same thing, ‘Loma, Loma, Loma’ but honestly it’s not relevant yet. I don’t know what this guy is gonna do,” Lopez recently told BoxingScene.com from his Las Vegas training camp.
When asked if he planned on jumping in the ring afterwards if Lomachenko, who is a heavy betting favorite, wins the fight - Lopez said it all depends on what his promoter and ESPN want him to do.
“I don’t care but if they want me to go in there - Top Rank and ESPN - then I will get up in there. If they don’t want me to then leave it as it is. If they do it’s because they really want that fight to happen. It’s a big mega fight why not and it’s a pay-per-view fight for sure,” Lopez stated.
In order for fight against Lomachenko to have any possibility of coming to fruition, Lopez must win his upcoming April 20th fight against Edis Tatli. The fight is part of the Terence Crawford-Amir Khan pay-per-view undercard that takes place at the Madison Square Garden in New York.
Send questions or comments to ringsidewriter@gmail.com You can follow Ryan on Twitter @ringsidewriter