More Questions: Teofimo Lopez’ latest move hard to figure

By Norm Frauenheim

A New Year started out a lot like the old one with news this week that suggests 2025 will be more idle than busy.

Teofimo Lopez, more enigmatic than charismatic these days, let a Tuesday deadline come and go without agreeing to a March 15 bout with ex-champion Subriel Matias for a junior-welterweight title defense at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena.

Why? That’s become the proverbial question without an answer. Predictably, Lopez tried to explain himself on unsocial media. But it was more of a tease than a reliable answer, fitting for X, an appropriately-named platform that inflames more than informs.

Lopez said he had unfinished business with Top Rank, whatever that means. He promised he’d be fighting in 2025.

“Guaranteed,’’ he said, ‘’by the powers that be! 3 6 9. ..’’

Those numbers could add up to just about anything, of course. March, June and September? The numbers are also thought to have some sort of mystical quality. Nickolas Tesla, the inventor and not X owner Elon Musk’s car, believed in writing down goals 3 times in the morning, 6 times at noon and 9 times at night. 

Repetition, Tesla reportedly thought, would make them happen. Then again, maybe 369 is just an area code. Eureka, it actually is for communities in Northern California.

Who knows? Increasingly, that’s another question being asked about Lopez. Media and fans are trying to get a clue. But throwing spaghetti against the wall makes more sense. Nothing there but a mess.

Lopez is entering his prime. He’s 27. He’s a two-division champion with a resume that includes a victory over the masterful Vasiliy Lomachenko. But the decision over Lomachenko happened in Oct. 2020. 

Then, it looked as if Lopez would fulfill his nickname, The Takeover. 

Over the next four years, however, there has been only mounting doubt, including a faux retirement and a scorecard loss to George Kambosos. Lopez disputed the defeat — a 2021 split decision in front of a hometown crowd in New York — in a wild post-fight scene. Kambosos, who would later lose to Lomachenko, called him delusional. 

But Top Rank preached patience. Bob Arum would wait for Lopez to  grow up, grow into his evident potential for enduring stardom. After a couple of ho-hum performances last year against Steve Claggett in June and Jermaine Ortiz in February, there was hope that the mature Lopez would finally arrive in 2025.

Finally, Take Over.

But Tuesday came, went and left the same questions about Lopez, who four years ago was called a cornerstone to a potential remake of Four Kings — Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Roberto Duran and Thomas Hearns, a four-way rivalry memorialized forever by writer George Kimball’s terrific book on the busy 1980s. 

About five years ago, Lopez, Devin Haney, Ryan Garcia and Tank Davis were anointed. They were going to be the sequel, the next Four.

But Garcia is under suspension and undergoing surgery. Haney is suing Garcia, who tested positive after punishing Haney in the 2024 Controversy of the Year in April. Haney is in London and hopes to resume his career in March. Tank, the best of the four, overwhelmed Garcia in April 2023, knocking him down twice in a seventh-round stoppage.

Tank, who fought only once in 2024 with a stoppage of Frank Martin in June, is scheduled to fight Lamont Roach March 1 in Brooklyn. He says he wants three more fights. Then, he says, he’ll retire.

Four Kings 2? More like Forgettable Four in an idle empire, one that figures to stay that way if Lopez’ latest move is a reliable sign.