By Alfredo Di Cesare
Jun 30, 2024, 2:44 PM EDT
Prodigal son of New York and pride of Honduras, at 25 years old Teofimo Lopez continues to grow his legacy in boxing. On Saturday night he successfully defended his WBO and Ring Magazine junior welterweight world titles with a unanimous decision victory over Canadian contender Steve Claggett (38-8-2, 6 KO) on Saturday night at the James L. Knight Center in Miami, Florida.
With only one loss, Lopez faced Claggett on a nine-fight winning streak. Despite winning the fight by unanimous decision, not everything is as it seems, as the 35-year-old boxer put pressure on and kept Teofimo on the ropes for much of the fight.
Lopez’s immunity was attacked by a strategy of jabs near the shoulders. For his part, the Honduran had to be agile on his legs and move a lot to dodge, hit and get out of Claggett’s guard, who was facing his first opportunity to be world champion.
The fight was exciting from start to finish and had to be defined by the judges’ scorecards. In the end, López was victorious in a unanimous decision that ended in partials of 120-108 (x2) and 119-109.
With a 21-1-13 KO streak, Teofimo Lopez successfully defended his belt for the second time. The first time was also this year when he defeated American Jamaine Ortiz by unanimous decision.
“Will must be stronger than ability”
At the end of the fight, López acknowledged that he expected this type of fight and the aggressive rival he found in the ring. “I knew exactly what kind of fighter he was. I knew he would come and test my conditioning. And that’s what we had in mind. We did twelve rounds,” he commented.
However, the 25-year-old acknowledged that the will to win was stronger than the difficulty of the fight. “The will has to be stronger than the skill. And that’s what we showed tonight. If I was tired, I know he was more tired because I worked so hard for this. We knew we had to wear him down. The body shots hurt him.”
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