Lance Pugmire, one of the last men standing at the freshly lobotomized BoxingScene, reports that WBA welterweight champion Rolando Romero has a “verbal agreement” to meet former two-division champion Teofimo Lopez this coming August.
FightHype’s Nick Nunan first brought word of the brewing matchup yesterday.
This being the WBA, there are naturally shenanigans afoot. The sanctioning body recently re-introduced their “super” champion status just to foist it on Romero (17-2, 13 KO), who’s been out of
action for more than a year since his upset of Ryan Garcia. That status came with the requirement that he meet “world” Jack Catterall within 180 days of his victory over the incredibly hard-done-by Shakhram Giyasov.
An August meeting with Lopez (22-2, 13 KO), who lost his super lightweight belt in a January rout at the hands of Shakur Stevenson, would pretty clearly preclude that. People aren’t going to be busting down the doors to see Romero vs Catterall, but the WBA binning an order barely a month after delivering it is grody even by their non-existent standards.
Taken on its own merits, Romero vs Lopez is a perfectly solid matchup, a reasonable welterweight debut for Lopez and an opportunity for Romero to either cash out or prove that the Garcia win was no fluke. Could be interesting to see how Lopez’s counter-focused style deals with Romero’s profoundly goofy offense.
