Teófimo López vs. George Kambosos Jr.

Teófimo López vs. George Kambosos Jr. was a lightweight professional boxing match between unified WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, and The Ring lightweight champion Teófimo López, and IBF mandatory challenger George Kambosos Jr. The fight took place on November 27, 2021, at the Hulu Theater, and was broadcast live exclusively on the streaming service DAZN. Kambosos won via split decision with two of the three judges scoring the contest 115–111 and 115–112 in his favor, and the other scoring it 114–113 for López.

Background

After López's upset unanimous decision victory of Ukrainian two-time Olympic champion and pound-for-pound star Vasiliy Lomachenko, López was called out by Lomachenko for a rematch, which did not materialize. He was also called out by fellow American lightweight Devin Haney, as well as by Kambosos Jr., who had beaten Lee Selby to become the mandatory challenger to López's IBF title.

Relations between López and Top Rank turned sour, after Top Rank offered López $1.25 million to face Kambosos Jr., his contract minimum. With López and Top Rank not coming to an agreement, the fight went to a purse bid. On February 25, Triller won the purse bid for $6 million, to stage the fight between López and Kambosos Jr. On April 16, the fight was initially announced for June 5, 2021 at LoanDepot Park in Miami, with the undercard involving an exhibition bout between Kevin McBride, and former undisputed cruiserweight and undisputed heavyweight world champion Evander Holyfield. On May 12, the bout was rescheduled for June 19, with Holyfield vs. McBride being removed from the undercard, before once again being pushed back to August 14, due to López testing positive for COVID-19. As the Miami Marlins had a game scheduled that day at LoanDepot Park, a new venue was to be announced.

Unsuccessful negotiations

More complications arose: Triller attempted to stage the fight in the challenger Kambosos' home country of Australia. This proved controversial, because at the time Australia was in lockdown, which would have forced the champion López to arrive in the country at least 2 weeks beforehand and cut weight while in government-mandated isolation. The IBF took López's team's side and ruled against the move. On August 15, Triller co-founder Ryan Kavanaugh announced that he was trying to find a venue for the fight in Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates. Over a week later, on August 23, it was announced that the fight would take place in López's home city, at the Hulu Theater in New York City on October 4, 2021. It was announced on September 26 that the fight had a new date and venue of October 16 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Early October it was announced that Triller would not go ahead with the fight on October 16, 2021, after almost $10 million spent on the promotional costs and no agreement reached regarding the date change.

Matchroom awarded rights

On October 6, it transpired that the IBF had found Triller in default of its contract obligation to stage the fight, and that its rights would be awarded to the second highest bidder, Eddie Hearn's Matchroom, and the fight was shown live exclusively on the streaming service DAZN.

Fight card

Weight Class		vs.		Method	Round	Time	Notes
Lightweight	George Kambosos Jr.	def.	Teófimo López (c)	SD	12		WBA (Super), IBF, WBO and The Ring Lightweight championship.
Super Featherweight	Kenichi Ogawa	def.	Azinga Fuzile	UD	12		IBF Super featherweight championship
Featherweight	Raymond Ford	def.	Felix Caraballo	TKO	8/10	2:10	WBA Continental featherweight
Heavyweight	Zhang Zhilei	def.	Craig Lewis	TKO	2/8	2:10
Super bantamweight	Ramla Ali	def.	Isela Vera	UD	4/4
Flyweight	Christina Cruz	def.	Maryguenn Vellinga	UD	6/6
Flyweight	Anthony Christopher Herrera	def.	Jonathan Daniel Herrera Tejeda	TKO	2/4	2:32	Pro debuts fight

^Note 1 For WBA (Super), IBF, WBO and The Ring lightweight titles

Broadcasting