Teofimo Lopez vs. Devin Haney Fight Falls Through
The anticipated fight between WBO super lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez and former undisputed lightweight champion Devin Haney, scheduled for August 16th, has been canceled. The news was confirmed by Lopez’s team, who cited “personal reasons” as the reason for the decision.
Initially, it was speculated that the fight would take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Haney (32-0, 15 KOs) was scheduled to face Ryan Garcia in a rematch, after defeating Jose Ramirez on May 2nd. However, after Garcia’s loss to Rolando Romero and his subsequent hand surgery, this matchup was ruled out.López, who also participated in the same card as García and Haney, had expressed his interest in fighting against the unified welterweight champion, Jaron “Boots” Ennis, despite the weight class difference.
The fight with Teo is not signed. I signed my part and Teo has been delaying. As of today, he has decided that he doesn’t want to fight me.
Devin Haney
Haney refuted that López (22-1) had signed the contract, citing the agreed weight as a problem. Haney stated that López did not want to fight him and accused López of avoiding the fight.
López has not made public statements about the matter, but recently had differences with Turki Alalshikh, chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority and owner of Ring Magazine, who would be the promoter of the fight. López apologized for a series of tweets with derogatory comments directed at Alalshikh.
Keith Connolly, López’s co-manager, issued a statement explaining the reasons for the cancellation.Unfortunately, Teo will not fight in August for personal reasons that I will keep confidential. We had planned to fight, but with what was happening he wanted to make sure he was 100% mentally and physically, and August was too short a deadline. I hope Teo returns at the end of this year, better than ever.
Keith Connolly
