Teofimo Lopez left the T-Mobile Arena on Saturday night a three-division world champion — and to be honest, it felt overdue. After a rough stretch where “The Takeover” looked lost, he out-worked his friend-turned-rival Rolly Romero — a fight I broke down in Friday’s Romero vs Lopez preview — to lift the WBA welterweight title by majority decision and remind everyone that the talent never left. For those who missed the buildup, the showdown headlined a loaded PBC weekend in Las Vegas.
Judges scored it 115-113 and 116-112 for Lopez, with Glenn Feldman turning in a 114-114 draw that felt generous to Romero. Most ringside observers saw it far clearer. Lopez controlled the night with exactly the jab-heavy, busy style he promised, using his hand speed to pile up body shots and long-range work while Romero mostly waited — and waited — looking for the one big counter.
He almost found it. In the fifth, Romero landed a check left hook that buzzed Lopez and briefly put “The Takeover” on unsteady legs. Lopez survived, clinching his way through the round as a fighter with real ring experience does, then got right back to business. “There was a shot that he hit me with that woke me up,” Lopez said afterward. “I stayed cool, calm, collected.”
That’s the Teofimo I’d hoped would show up. Not the passive, flat version we’ve seen in losses over the years, but the slick, high-volume operator who once beat Lomachenko. Now 23-2, he’s a champion at 135, 140, and now 147 — and even with a baby on the way and father time on the agenda, he made the case that the welterweight division just got more interesting.
A British night for the middleweights
Across the pond at the Copper Box in East London, George Liddard took the next step in a promising career, stopping Italy’s Dario Morello after eight rounds to claim the vacant European middleweight title. The 24-year-old, now 15-0 with nine knockouts, has swept up the British, Commonwealth, and now European belts at 160. It’s a thin division at the top, and if he keeps winning, world-level talk won’t be far behind.
The Commonwealth belts had a good all-British night too. Jimmy Sains out-pointed Tom Cowling by unanimous decision for the vacant Commonwealth middleweight belt, and Tiah Mai Ayton scored a corner stoppage win over Ellie Hellewell in the seventh to take the Commonwealth featherweight strap.
Remembering Zolani Tete
Boxing also lost someone on Saturday, and it was the cruellest kind of loss. Former two-division champion Zolani Tete, 38, was fatally shot by masked gunmen outside his home in Mdantsane, South Africa, authorities said. A female companion remains hospitalized. It is a horrific way for a genuinely beloved fighter to go.
Tete’s story had a Filipino connection that makes this sting a little sharper for us. He was a brilliant champion at the lower weights — IBF super flyweight, then WBO bantamweight, where he once knocked out Siboniso Gonya with his very first punch for the fastest KO in championship history. But it was Filipino star John Riel Casimero who took that WBO belt from him in an upset. Given how much respect both men carried, Casimero will feel this one too.
The Fury-Joshua saga rolls on
Meanwhile, the sport’s biggest heavyweight fight keeps wobbling. Tyson Fury went public with doubts, accusing Anthony Joshua and Eddie Hearn of demanding more money to take the fight to the United States. Hearn pushed back that the contract is signed and a date just needs setting — but he conceded that everyone involved in staging it wants America, not the UK.
Mark my words on this one: neither man is pulling out, but the destination is still very much live. If Sela and Turki Alalshikh bend to give Joshua extra coin, Fury will want his own bump — the kind of super-fight money wrangling we keep seeing at the top of the sport. Signed contracts in boxing rarely end up in court; they end up with one side getting more money. Expect America.
Filipino corner: the road to Magsayo vs Cortes
For Filipino fight fans, the next big date is September 12 at T-Mobile Arena, when Mark Magsayo meets Andres Cortes on a stacked Las Vegas card — the same kind of breakout test Charly Suarez passed in July when he obliterated Elias Avila on the undercard. Magsayo is one of the most underrated Filipinos in the sport — a former WBC featherweight champion whose only losses came to Rey Vargas and Brandon Figueroa — and a win over Cortes puts him right back in super-featherweight contention.
There’s real domestic gold on the horizon too. Regie Suganob faces Sivenathi Nontshinga in a September 12 IBF light-flyweight eliminator in Tagbilaran City, a fight with genuine title implications for the Philippines. And when it comes to heritage, everyone from Manny Pacquiao to Nonito Donaire and Casimero built this country’s reputation at the lighter weights — the same division where Tete once reigned.
Before all that, Weljon Mindoro fights in Los Angeles on August 30, and Eumir Marcial is back in a pro bout on September 19 in Temecula. The Filipino calendar is healthy, and that’s the kind of weekend-to-weekend news I’ll take.
If you’re Filipino like me, you know exactly how this weekend felt on two levels at once — pride in a three-weight champion from the sport’s glamour division, and sadness for a champion from our weight classes who left the way no fighter should. Boxing’s highs and lows, all in one weekend.