Terence Crawford sensationally called out Teofimo Lopez and offered him a shot at stealing the American’s legacy, on the qualifying condition that he manages to beat Israil Madrimov as the 36-year-old sparks an online war of words.
Crawford claimed a unanimous decision victory against the Uzbekistani fighter on August 3 in Los Angeles to claim the WBA and WBO (interim) light-middleweight titles, as well as already holding the WBA, WBC, IBF and The Ring welterweight belts.
The triumph promoted suggestions he could take on Canelo Alvarez in a bid to seal his legacy as one of the greatest fighters of all time, but that seems unlikely to happen now despite Saudi Arabia dangling their infinite money before the Mexican.
So in an explosive post on social media, it seems as though Bud has moved on to call out Lopez in a quest to re-conquer a division where he used to be undisputed champ as the Nicaraguan-American currently holds the WBO and The Ring light-welterweight titles.
“@TeofimoLopez you fight and beat @IsrailMadrimov next, I’ll whoop yo ass next bet,” Crawford posted to X.com, formerly Twitter. “Now let’s see how much you wanna fight.”
Crawford went on to add, “If you ever thought Teo had a better resume than me, yo momma eats dog s**t, and you need to stay far away from boxing because you don’t know shit about boxing.”
With a record of 41-0-0 (31 knockouts), Bud has defeated opponents such as Amir Khan, Shawn Porter and Errol Spence Jr. since he became a champion for the first time in 2014, with a win over Ricky Burns.
So he feels this makes him best-placed to judge Lopez’s quality of opponents as he slammed The Takeover for what the 36-year-old judged to be a poor resume, even suggesting he forced other opponents to come in underweight.
“I respect all fighters,” Crawford continued. “But @TeofimoLopez only fought 3 fighters worth even talking about, and that’s Lomachenko, and [Jamaine] Ortiz beat him.
“[Josh] Taylor lost his fight before Teo and definitely should have moved up to 147, but we all know why he killed himself to make 140.”
Lopez strikes back
Lopez was not willing to allow Crawford to disrespect his name so openly and wasted no time in snapping back at the multi-weight champion via social media as he seems very keen on making the fight happen.
The 27-year-old, who holds a net worth reportedly in the region of $5 million, even offered to fight Crawford for free.
“We either lace up the gloves,” Lopez said via X.com. “Or SHUT YO HOE A** UP.”
Lopez then added in a separate post, “Absolutely! What I said remains. Like I told you before, in front of you!
“The whole world needs to watch me beat you. Not just word of mouth! You A-side so what we doing! I will fight you for FREE #Boxing.”
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