Undefeated no more. George Kambosos stunned the reigning lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez via split decision to win the WBO, WBA, IBF, and WBC belts Saturday night. In an action packed fight where both fighters hit the canvas at various points throughout the evening, the challenger eked out a 115-112, 115-111, 114-113 (Lopez) split decision to shock fight fans.
The 28 year old Australian narrowly edged out the champion in terms of punches landed (182-176) but was clearly the busier boxer throwing 174 more punches and landing 155 power punches to Lopez’s 115. The win catapults Kambosos (20-0, 10KOs) to the top of one of the stronger divisions in all of boxing. Meanwhile Lopez, who entered the bout at 16-0 will now reportedly look at moving up a weight class as he’s struggled to get down to the 135 threshold in several of his recent fights.
The fact that the fight even happened is a miracle in and of itself. Originally slated for June 19th in Miami, the match was postponed numerous times due to COVID, and legal disputes regarding which promotion had the rights to the fight. All in all the event changed dates 8 times before finally taking place at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theatre in New York.
Both fighters took home career high purses with Lopez earning $3.178M while Kambosos banked a cool $1.527M for his efforts. After the fight Kambosos’ promoter Lou DiBella was quick to squash thoughts of a rematch “Right now, he’s the boss…He earned it tonight…There’s no rematch clause. We’re going to do whatever’s in his best interests from a business perspective. He’s going to sit back, take a little time off and enjoy the victory. Then we’re going to figure out the biggest fight we can make.”