Teofimo Lopez Jr will be making his return to the ring in a welterweight title bid against Rolly Romero later this month, and in an interview with Mr. Verzace on behalf of Ring Magazine, the pair have an awkward segment where they confused the show for a Dr. Phil special when discussing what went wrong in their loss to Shakur Stevenson.
“You know how great my son is that you had all these people trying to mess with him mentally for that fight,” Teofimo Sr. said of the Shakur fight. “Everybody.”
“And you helped them,” Teofimo Jr chimed in.
“Whatever it is, we both messed up,” Teofimo Sr replied.
Teofimo Jr, however, would not accept shared responsibility with his father on this one.
“No…Sometimes you just got to take it for what it is…This is something that we got to spill out. I got to take [responsibility] for my actions when I’m wrong,” Teofimo Jr said before being interrupted.
“You have to forget about the past, about what they say about you or if they don’t put you on the pound-for-pound list — all that sh-t don’t mean nothing,” Teofimo Sr said. “They want to get you mentally. You don’t see it?! You see it.”
“But at the same time, you’re my father,” Teofimo Jr responded. “And I’m advocating for you…”
“You know what, this fight saved us because I’m a better person now,” Teofimo Sr said.
“But you got to accept it wasn’t me, not this time,” Teofimo Jr would reply. “Every son wants to make their father proud, am I right? When you got your father in that moment, when you’re bleeding, when they’re allowing Shakur to do all these extra things, and you’re in there and you’ve broken the record for most attendance in Madison Square Garden, you’re this and you’re that, and your trainer is not giving you instructions, they’re just talking you down. ‘Where’s your power? Where’s this? You’re going to hate yourself’…
At this point Teofimo Sr could barely go on listening.
“You didn’t box in that fight,” Teofimo Sr said. “I’m not even going to argue with you, because you’re blaming me for it. What did you say after the fight? You didn’t listen to your father, that’s what you said, right?…They’re trying to break us, man. And they’re not going to succeed. That’s why I don’t even go on social media no more.”
“I realized that I can’t do all of this [by myself],” Teofimo Jr would conclude. “In my head, I pretty much could. I kind of feel like I have. But along the journey when you’re trying to make sure your team is good, that’s when things can get rocky. You got to make sure everyone is on the same vision. Whether I got to pull out a vision board in this camp, then so be it.”
So…yeah! I’d say training camp is going pretty smoothly for Teo ahead of this upcoming title fight! Check out the full video interview below.