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By: Hans Themistode
When Teofimo Lopez did the unthinkable by defeating Vasiliy Lomachenko in October of 2020, most of the boxing world viewed him as the undisputed lightweight champion. As of late, however, Lopez is being regarded as a unified champion instead. When Lopez upset the odds against the Ukrainian, his IBF title – along with Lomachenko’s WBA, WBO and WBC “Franchise” belt was on the line.
While Mauricio Sulaiman, President of the WBC has come out and said that Lopez is, in fact, the undisputed champion, he has also contradicted himself on numerous occasions as he admits Devin Haney is the WBC full champion.
Despite the ever confusing situation in the lightweight division, 135-pound contender George Kambosos Jr. is firmly behind Lopez. In the Australian’s opinion, Haney can scream until he’s blue in the face all he wants, unless he goes into the ring and actually defeats Teofimo Lopez, Kambosos Jr. will view his title reign as a fraudulent one.
“He (Lopez) is the undisputed champion,” said Kambosos Jr. during an interview with Fight Hub TV. “He has every single belt. When we fight it’ll be for every single belt. Lomachenko had the WBC belt, obviously, they decided to make a franchise title which is like a super title, a super belt, just like the WBA has. He moved on to that title but he (Lopez) beat the guy who was the WBC champ, Lomachenko.”
Although Haney claims that he wanted to earn his world title by facing Lomachenko as opposed to it being handed to him, Kambosos Jr. believes the Las Vegas resident took the easy way out.
“Devin Haney never fought for the title, never won the belt properly. He was interim champion or silver champion whatever he was. Then, all of sudden he got an email, or a Gmail, or a Yahoo mail or whatever you want to call it and he became a world champion. If that was me, I would’ve put the email in spam and I ain’t accepting it, I like to earn things. Even if I don’t become a world champion, I would rather know that I gave it my all and no one gave it to me.”
Currently, Kambosos Jr. is in the midst of training camp as he prepares to take on Lopez sometime this coming summer. The supremely confident undefeated contender wants to be addressed as the undisputed champion if he hands Lopez the first defeat of his career.
Win, lose or draw – Kambosos Jr. is very comfortable with the man he’ll be staring at when he looks in the mirror. As for Haney, Kambosos Jr. doesn’t believe he can say the same.
“Devin Haney is parading different. He thinks he’s the full champion but I’ll bet you when he looks at himself in the mirror, he knows that he didn’t earn that belt.”
