Bill Haney, the father and trainer of two-weight world champion boxer Devin Haney, said recently that a fight against Teofimo Lopez can be made should the Top Rank boxer want it.
Lopez is a very ambitious fighter regarding his boxing career, his opposition, and the finances attached to premier fights and against premier opposition.
He beat Vasyl Lomachenko at a period where many within the sport thought that the Ukrainian was unbeatable in 2020, scoring a unanimous decision to claim the unified WBA, WBO and IBF lightweight world titles.
Against many people’s expectations, Lopez moved up to the 140-pound division and challenged the former undisputed world champion Josh Taylor for the WBO world super-lightweight title.
Questions leading into the contest surrounded the mental well-being of Lopez, who, during the fight week media obligations, had been fiery and aggressive in his conduct. Lopez put those concerns to the side and secured a dominating and comfortable points win to become a two-weight world champion.
Lopez, last week, targeted the former two-weight undisputed champion Terence Crawford, who currently holds three of the four titles at welterweight and is the consensus pound-for-pound No.1-rated fighter.
Bill Haney, unimpressed with the tone of Lopez’s comments, said in a recorded video according to Boxing Scene that Teo should look at Devin rather than Crawford.
"Teofimo Lopez, if you don’t knock it off … talking about you want Bud Crawford," he said.
"Listen, act like you got some sense and we can make Haney vs. Lopez for the 140-pound unification. Act like you have some sense, and stop talking about Bud Crawford. You don’t want any of Bud Crawford, and you don’t deserve any. Knock it off.”
A fight between Lopez and Haney would be one of the more anticipated fights within the 140lb division, following Haney’s career-best performance against Regis Prograis in December to claim the WBC super-lightweight tile over twelve dominating rounds.
Lopez, following his win over Taylor in July, had announced his retirement from the sport, unretirement and was recently confirmed to be defending his WBO title for the first time against Jamaine Ortiz on February 8 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
