George Kambosos beats Teofimo Lopez to become unified lightweight champion
Australia’s George Kambosos Jr won the IBF, WBA and WBO lightweight titles from Teófimo López in a seismic upset on Saturday night at the Theater at Madison Square Garden.
The unheralded Sydney native, who went off as a 6-1 underdog, dropped López in the opening round, then came off the floor himself in the 10th to win a split decision before a rollicking crowd of several thousand spectators almost entirely in the champion’s corner.
The gripping encounter was the upset of the year and, quite possibly, the fight of the year.
“I believed in myself, I backed myself,” Kambosos said in the immediate aftermath. “I said it time after time: You might not believe it, but I believe in myself. And look at me now. I’ve got all the jewels. I’m not the king, I’m the emperor because I come to every other country and I take them out one by one.”
López, the 24-year-old Brooklyn native and one of the sport’s brightest young talents, was back in action for the first time since delivering on his enormous promise more than 13 months ago with a comprehensive unanimous-decision win over Vasiliy Lomachenko, the three-weight champion from Ukraine who for years had been widely regarded as boxing’s pound-for-pound best.
That more than four hundred days passed between López’s star turn in the MGM Grand bubble and Saturday night’s thrice-postponed date with Kambosos, the IBF’s mandatory challenger, staged in the Garden’s smaller theater instead of the big room next door, offers an instructive if mind-numbing case study in boxing’s tragicomic institutional dysfunction.
As the fight seemed to be getting out of hand after the opening six rounds, Lopez’s corner offered little by way of adjustments, with Teofimo Lopez Sr. instead asking his son why he hadn’t gotten the Australian challenger out yet.
Lopez finally roared to life in the ninth round. A late right hand seemed to bother Kambosos and Lopez poured it on in Round 10, scoring with a big right hand that took Kambosos’ legs and sent him to the canvas. While Kambosos looked hurt and fatigued, he managed to survive the frame to reach the championship rounds.
Despite having been knocked down in the 10th, Kambosos took over in the final two rounds, outworking Lopez and securing his upset victory in the biggest rounds of his life.
The official scorecards read 115-111, 113-114, 115-112, with Kambosos winning on two of the cards.
That was enough for Kambosos to walk out of Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theater with three of the four recognized world championships at lightweight.
