Teofimo Lopez Explains Why Fighting Friend Rolly Romero ‘had To Occur’

“We go way back from 2015,” Teofimo said to Mike Coppinger of The Ring. “We built a relationship, a friendship at the identical time while climbing the ranks in skilled boxing.”

“I believe now we’ve come to terms where we’ve got to fight one another to let everybody know, yeah, it’s cool to be friends, but in the case of competition, in the case of what we like to do, we’ve got to place the whole lot to the side and make the fight occur.”

Teofimo pointed to his 2019 victory over former lightweight champion Richard Commey as one other example of separating business from friendship. Although he admitted it was difficult facing someone he respected, he said those opportunities are a part of the game.

He also argued that modern boxing has moved away from the mindset that when produced lots of the sport’s biggest fights.

“It is a recent thing where the fellows are saying they don’t need to fight one another because they’re friends,” Teofimo said. “I believe we want to bring that back. Look how much boxing has grown since then. Look how much noise it’s brought and look how much entertainment as well. I believe we just must bring that back, and it starts August 22.”

The fight gives Teofimo an instantaneous opportunity to change into a three-division world champion after spending the past several years campaigning at light welterweight. Rolly will likely be making the primary defense of the WBA welterweight title he won by defeating Ryan Garcia, while Teofimo is moving up in weight following his unanimous decision loss to Shakur Stevenson in January.