Former WBA junior welterweight champion Regis Prograis praised Teofimo Lopez for his victory in his 140-pound debut, but cautioned that the top dogs in the weight class would be too much for him to handle.
Former unified lightweight champion Lopez 17-1 (13) took apart Pedro Campo 34-2 (23) in seven rounds at Resorts Wold Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday night in a scheduled 10-round bout.
It was his first fight since losing his lightweight titles to Australian George ‘Ferocious’ Kambosos Jr in November last year.
“Good lil comeback fight, but the dogs at 140 would chew him up,” Prograis posted to his Twitter account.
He added: “I just watched the full Teo fight. It was a good performance against somebody he was supposed to build his confidence with.
“He still got hit with a lot of flush shots that he should’ve avoided. He would have to fix some flaws to compete with any of the bigger 140’s in my opinion.”
That was a very different take than what was coming from the Lopez camp, with trainer and father Teofimo Lopez Sr saying the fight went exactly as they anticipated.
“I seen that we had him. He was just open for all shots and I told him in the seventh round ‘this is the round’ and he did it,” Lopez Sr told FightHype.
“He went out there and performed amazingly. That guy was no joke. I take my hat off to him because that guy came to win. He was a tough fighter. He would have given anybody problems, anybody.
“My son wasn’t throwing his power as much. He was boxing the hell out of him. When he started hitting him with some good shots, that’s when he started opening up. He started hurting.
“This guy can take punches. He would have went down with a lot of punches my son hit him with. He didn’t want to go down, especially that left hook just catching him all night and right hand.
“I told him ‘right hand’ and that’s how he took him out with a right hand. We can fight Josh Taylor. Whoever has the belts, that’s who we want.”
A fight against undefeated former junior welterweight champion Taylor – who still holds the WBO and IBF 140-pound titles along with recognition as the Ring magazine champion – seems unlikely, with the Scotsman expected to rematch Jack Catterall later this year before moving up to the lucrative welterweight division.
Prograis is expected to face Jose Zepeda for the vacant WBC strap before the end of the year, making a world title fight for Lopez unlikely before 2023, unless he can find a way to make a play for the vacant WBA belt.
Lopez was ranked number eight by the WBA in their July ratings.
