MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Teofimo Lopez Jr. vs. Jamaine Ortiz Reaction + Haney vs. Garcia Announcement | Morning Kombat

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

Brian Campbell has you covered with a reaction to Teofimo Lopez jr.'s controversial win over Jamaine Ortiz. What is next for Teofimo? Plus BC discusses Devin Haney vs. Ryan Garcia reportedly being made for April 20th.  Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. So yeah, about last night. Wow, what a time to be a boxing fan. Welcome, my man. Hey, Morning Combat. Long time no talk, right? It is Friday, February 9th, 2024. You're looking at me, the Brian Campbell. ahead of the huge relaunch we've got coming up in March that we would still be jumping in and out, reviewing, previewing, or reacting to what goes on in the world of combat sports. And last night, super late on the East Coast,

we did get something to react to along with a fight announcement overnight. So here's the breakdown. We got Teofimo Lopez Jr. edging out Jermaine Ortiz last night, Thursday night in Las Vegas, Super Bowl week, a top-ranked card on ESPN, a defense, the first time of Teofimo's WBO 140-pound title. And talk about a disputed decision, talk about a little bit of a horrible fight to watch, at least aesthetically, at least entertainment-wise. And let's talk about the fallout that comes with that. Now, the good news is that these two topics I'm going to hit are related because this is the 140-pound division,

which in the past year has really become boxing's deepest and sexiest south of heavyweight, really taking that mantle from welterweight. And what we have announced April 20th, good gosh, the zone pay-per-view it will be devin haney defending his wbc title at 140 against ryan garcia so a lot to get into my voice keeps breaking on me but look welcome back it's been a long time guys since we've rock and rolled in these mk parts here it hasn't been. It's never easy to sit around and wait as the future gets built right in front of you.

But things are going well. Appreciate all the shout outs and the support and the DMs for those just checking in on your boy BC. A little bit of a wellness check. I appreciate that. Things are going well. Controlling what I can control. Putting my nose to the grind as always.

And pumping out the content that you combat sports fans deserve. So that's what we got going on here on Morning Combat. Luke Thomas, of course, my partner in crime. You do see a lot of him on the interwebs. And we will be back next week, of course, with our UFC 298 Morning Combat preview. So stay tuned for that. Let's get into it. Thursday night was the continuation the

next chapter and what has become the best reality show in television in boxing for better or worse and that's the life and career of teo fema lopez jr 26 years old arguably the best 140 pound fighter in the world or at least that's what we thought and learned from last june when you went to madison square garden took on lineal champion josh taylor the former undisputed king and in the midst of the hype of worry of doubt about teo's mental space about everything going on in his personal life the divorce the custody battle and how that has played into his transition to 140 pounds after already such an up and down run in recent years which saw him upset vasily lomachenko to become unified lightweight champion and one of the pound for pound top stars and then lose the title in his next fight his first defense to george cambosis jr which was an implosion of course he did have that very serious

uh life-threatening in a situation there with his chest and the organs inside, the esophageal tear and everything that went with that. And then we just got a couple flat performances at 140 pounds for Teofimo after moving up. The Kampa fight, the Sandor Martin fight where he looked in the camera and said, do I still got it? Unfortunately, what happened Thursday night is par for the course in the Teofimo experience. We were hoping that Josh Taylor was the proof, along with Lomachenko, that when this guy is dialed in, he's among the most dynamic fighters in the sport. And that's still true. He has a great boxing IQ, but as we found out against Ortiz last night, maybe not great enough.

He has sublime athleticism. Roy Jones very early on compared Teofimo to himself. But Styles do make fights. And while Thursday night was certainly in a disputed win for Teofimo Lopez, a unanimous decision in a fight which most people visually watched him get outboxed. It's survive in advance, but it feels like another step, step back. Now, historically, it won't matter. It's like the Nakatani fight. The Nakatani fight for Teofimo, which was the final fight before, right?

Before entering into the real unified title picture and taking on Lomachenko and pulling that upset. The Nakatani fight, if you remember, was the title defense at 135 where Teofimo was arguing with his family backstage right before walking to the ring where his then fiance, which was not approved by his wife, by his mother and sister. You remember that story? That fight seemed like its own aberration in the middle where we had a certain level of doubt for Teofimo because he was out thought out boxed that night but still rallied and just barely pulled off that

decision that fight felt like the aberration because he was able to come back out the next time right against Comey the early knockout against Lomachenko and just completely turn into a different fighter which has made us believe that he's a product of his own circumstances fight to fight. And those circumstances typically involve the outside the ring chaos that often follows Teofimo into it. The difference is the early model version of Teofimo, the 22, 23, 24 year old who first burst on the scene

and announced that he was next. I mean, now we look back in his upset of lomachenko it's like we accept that as matter of fact but don't forget in the fights leading up to that there was all this talk that teofimo's father and trainer uh teofimo lopez senior who they called junior is his nickname i don't get it either there was this idea that maybe he's not the best um maybe he's not the best protector of teofimo and that he ran him into that lomacheco fight but what teofimo did that night was just the same thing he did against josh taylor last year amid all the chaos all the questions he rose to another level when

the lights were the brightest the lights were pretty darn bright on thursday night right it was the super bowl week special edition showcase opportunity although not a showcase opponent of course in jermaine ortiz and we learned a lot about ortiz once again in a close defeat here but maybe this night maybe this fight which turned out to be a poor style matchup for teofimo maybe this was a situation where the lights weren't bright enough to bring out and channel that very best pound for pound version of himself. Or maybe this is just who Teofimo is and what his career will now always be. Hit or miss, very hot or very cold. That seems to be dictated usually by the things going on outside the ring and the challenges

to his own mental health which seem to often have him on tilt when he comes into many different interviews you kind of don't know what he's going to say he's almost entering into a tyson fury level of that where you're not really sure if he's playing you he admitted that in the build-up to this fight that he played us all ahead of the josh taylor fight made himself seem more crazy than he is in order maybe to raise the concern level raise the interest level in his fights only to come forth with that performance that he had against josh taylor maybe it's just that or maybe in this fight jermaine ortiz took the blueprint of what Sandor Martin, a light hitting, but very skilled defensive boxer did in further developing the blueprint of what style, if there is one that could be kryptonite to Teofimo. So that's a long winded setup of saying Thursday night's fight was survive in advance with a close unanimous decision, a very close, a very disputed one. But it also may have further opened up the idea that there's key parts of

Teofimo's boxing game, of his IQ, of his game planning, of his adaptiveness that still aren't fully there on the elite level. When the style matches up perfectly to bring out what he does best. And of course, we're mentioning the Lomachenko win, the Taylor win. You can see Teo rise to a level where you're like, I'm not sure there's 10 guys better than him in the sport. But styles make fights in the style that Jermaine Ortiz put out last night,

opening up at Southpaw and staying there for the entirety of the 12 rounds for a normally orthodox fighter who does switch sometimes this was full on off the start we're going to give you a different difficult look it was a problem for tail female he's lucky to have won this fight in advance so let's get first into the scoring on a larger macro view 117 111 from steve weisfeld who as joeess said after the fight, excuse me, on ESPN, might be the best judge in the sport at this moment, might have the best reputation, the best amount of experience.

Yet this was the most controversial card by far, 17-11. You had two judges that scored at 115-113. And of course, you had a lot of boos throughout for the lack of two-way action. Then you had a lot of boos for the result of those who felt that Jermaine Ortiz was screwed. And then really, you had a lot of boos for what became a bizarre post-fight interview from Teofimo where you're trying to piece out what's real, what's him trying too hard out of maybe embarrassment or whatever, or what's really going on here. How did I have the fight scored? 114, 114, even a draw. It's not a bailout score because here's really what happened.

It sounds weird to say, hey, Jermaine Ortiz outboxed him, but deserved to have lost. I'm not going to get fully on board with that, but here's what really happened here. Did Jermaine Ortiz expose Teofimo by being so difficult and elusive and defensive? Yes, to some degree he did. It was a brilliant game plan, but a brilliant game plan up to a point. Ortiz turned southpaw at the start, like I mentioned, right away that takes away Teofimo's

jab. In fact, Lopez attempted only 12 jabs throughout the entire 12-round fight, which is just ridiculous. That not only lowered the output of Teofimo, it made his offense very predictable. Every time he's looking to jump in against the Southpaw with the lead right hands, but these right hands are not set up by feints, by jabs, by anything. Ortiz can see that coming a mile away. There's two things Ortiz seems to really have at an elite level.

He's got great size for this division, even though he just recently moved up to 140 himself. He's got a great motor and has an incredible shape, as you can see. And his footwork, when put in practice in fights like this, can be sublime at times. Ortiz was brilliant in constantly circling away, in making Teofimo chase, and then just as Teofimo would catch up, you'd see Ortiz with the defensive jabs, get out of trouble, roll away, and really make Teofimo look bad. So Ortiz succeeded with his style at making Teofimo Lopez look frustrated, visually frustrated, created chaos in his corner

as Teofimo's father was urging him multiple times, combination son, not one punch at a time. But the problem in the end for Ortiz was even though he greatly succeeded at limiting Teofimo's attempts to largely one punch at a time, he himself, Ortiz, was also only throwing one punch at a time. So you ask yourself, if our eyes showed us that he outboxed Teofimo somewhat clearly, how can he lose this fight? Comes down to boxing scoring. And I don't say it comes down to boxing scoring as a way to over-inflate how flawed the 10-9 system is.

You've got to be offensive enough to leave no doubt in close fights and in this case Ortiz fought very well defensively but he also was landing counter jab here counter jab there he would come in with combinations but Teofimo had very good defense you saw in those slow motion replays of some of those mid-round sequences when uh Ortiz did put himself in a good position to punch attempted combinations and the head movement of Teofimo, the high guard, his willingness to welcome Ortiz into the corner with him, hoping that will spark action. It's actually good defense from Lopez in the end. So Ortiz's biggest problem was he built a repeated pattern that worked, the constant

circling away, making Teofimo look bad and chase him. But there wasn't a point where that backpedaling turned into meeting him in the middle and leaving no doubt offensively in the judges' minds. The biggest problem for Ortiz was in the championship rounds, the blueprint was set on how to beat Lopez, but he stuck too firmly to that defensive blueprint. And when you are backpedaling repeatedly

in the championship rounds while the champion is looking to chase you push the force to fight on you and put that pressure on you it can be hard in very close fights to guarantee that you get your hand raised it's no different than the criticism in mma i gave israel adesanya for his very close victory over yoel romero where you're like how much are we going to credit Romero for slowing down the pace, for landing that big strike on Adesanya in round one to kind of discipline him,

and for basically making Adesanya look kind of human the rest of the way. Ultimately, the judges scored against him, although it's a different sort of scoring criteria. The same thing against Ortiz. There was never a moment in that fight where Romero turned it back into full-on offense to leave no doubt. So the three judges at ringside in Las Vegas, all very credible and well-known, by the way,

what they saw visually this close in front of them was a Teofimo that was at least constantly pushing the pace, even though he rightfully got criticized on the broadcast by Tim Bradley, who I thought continued to do a tremendous job. And there's not universal Tim Bradley fans across the board. Let me say, first of all, the Hall of Famer Tim Bradley, one of my favorite fighters to cover and interview in my history in this game because he's so raw and honest. I love the way his raw, honest takes are overwhelming in some ways,

this top-ranked broadcast. The reason why that matters is because what has been the criticism of the ESPN top-ranked broadcast. The reason why that matters is because what has been the criticism of the ESPN top-ranked broadcasts in recent years, the constant screaming of the accolades of the fighters. Tyson Fury, 6'9". Vasily Lobachev is the pound-for-pound king until next week when we have Terrence Crawford and he'll be the pound-for-pound king, right?

There's been all commercial, commercial, commercial. Tim Bradley cuts to the core of that. He's giving the analysis like he's on HBO 20 years ago, right? He's giving me the analysis that cuts underneath the promoter network relationship and just gives you straight truth. And his truth constantly was right about Teofimo, about that he was not cutting off the ring, but he was pushing the pace. And when these judges are forced to judge very close rounds in which, first of all, nothing's really happening. Second of all, Ortiz, although outclassing in certain key parts of the scoring criteria, is just not putting that exclamation point offensively. Then if the punches stats are very close per round, and if the larger impact of the bigger shots is probably still Lopez,

the rare times he's able to break in and break through Ortiz's guard, that mental image of watching Ortiz constantly circle away as the crowd is booing, that's eventually going to go against him in some very close rounds. And I think that explains the scoring in this case. It's in, oh, the A side got protected. The pretty boy, the promoter's dream. Now look, they did set up Lopez not to fail. They put him on Super Bowl week

and a big Thursday night card. And I love that idea. I love the Thursday night, weeknight special attraction feel. It's a little different than the Tuesday morning breakfast at Wimbledon, Niowa Inoue feel of 6 a.m. in Japan. But it's special.

They build him as the entertainer, the showstopper. I forgot the exact word that they use, but it was all circus related. You saw the circus freaks come out in an inventive walkout. You saw Teofimo come out in the ringmaster outfit. Yes, he was the A-side, the guy that they were propping up in hopes of all the fights that he's trying to link himself with, including Terrence Crawford, by the way, could come to fruition.

But at the same time, Teof Tao's got a somewhat tenuous relationship with Wabaram and Top Rank, going back to the Kambosis fight in which Tao pushed to force that fight to a purse bid, which meant that that allowed Dazon and Eddie Hearn to come in and sort of buy the rights to that fight. It was messy. It was a headache for Tao Fimo. So I'm not saying that this set of score scorecards here while disputed are because of, oh, that's boxing. That's BS. That's business.

Ortiz deserved it. Ortiz fought very well, but he held off just enough to leave those doubt in the close rounds that in the eyes of judges, it reminds me so much. And I got the poster on my wall right here of one of my favorite fights I ever covered. April 13th, 2013, I believe is the date. And it was Donair versus Rigondel. And it was when Donair was on the top of the world. He was the 2012 fighter of the year. So it's the year after that, right? He's number three, pound for pound behind Manny and Floyd. And Rigondel came in there and put forth one of the more brilliant sort of technical

displays but that fight was wildly disputed in how it was scoring i specifically remember those on the broadcast side of the ring the hbo table the max kellermans the the late harold letterman they all had the fight wide for rigondell and that created a sort of debate on air for those watching who are watching it through their eyes through the eyes of Letterman and Kellerman going wow you know this fight is closer than maybe it should have been now in the end the right guy won Guillermo Rigondel won a close decision but from that side of the ring it looked like he won it wider from the media side of the ring and by the way this was a very unique venue Radio City Music Hall on the stage the media was set next to the ring Michael J J. Fox in the front row.

I mean, it was a hardcore fan's dream type night of boxing, even though the fight had extremely boring stretches. But the extremely boring stretches were what made it so hard to score. Those sitting on the media side of the ring all had Rigondel winning, but by a very close margin. There were a group of rounds in which Rigondel full-time went into defensive make-you-miss mode, not dissimilar to Ortiz in this fight against Lopez. It was constant circling.

It was constant, I'll step this way and step away and make you miss. But what Rigondel didn't do in those close rounds was put the exclamation point. Leave no doubt statistically. Leave no doubt in the image of what you take away exiting the round. There were the judges who were sitting on opposite sides of the ring, and at least two of them echoed the scorecards that the media had on that side of the ring, which was even though Donair is not super effective in these slow and boring rounds in which Rigondel is making him miss, he is the fighter pushing the action. He is the fighter backing up the other fighter.

That's ring generalism. And he's mixing in enough jabs to keep it close. That's why that fight was so close and disputed in many ways with also a group of people thinking Rigondeaux should have won widely. But the difference in why I think Rigondeaux deserved getting his hand raised was he did have the moments where he did turn it up, especially when Donair reached over that line of pressure when he went for it, it was in the first three rounds, but specifically round one, when Rigondel landed, some really hard left hands to give Donair the idea that, look, you crossed this line,

I have the power to make you pay. And then also, let's not forget down the stretch in the championship rounds, what did Rigondel do? He scored a key knockdown late, a very key knockdown, which is that flagpole on top of your performance that says, I know it's close. I know this can be interpreted different ways, but what about this right here? What about this 10-9 round right here? We didn't get that from Ortiz. And when you leave it open to interpretation like that in very close rounds, judges have their own strike zones. It's no different than Major League Baseball. It's no different than major league baseball

there's no different than knowing a certain umpire is going to call that borderline strike there are judges that prefer the guy making the fight pushing it and i do think if you read the scoring criteria closely you certainly could support that so whether you buy that whether you said watching it whether you were scoring round by round or you're just drinking a beer and watching twitter and and you know picking up the the takes of others and trying to mix it with your own which is how a lot of us watch these fights just because i'm okay even though i scored it a draw with lopez surviving and advancing given that long breakdown i just gave you doesn't mean it's not a step back for his value for his pound for pound ranking for his at 26 this whole idea of can he keep the

train on the tracks long enough with the constant distractions going on to put forth the very best of him i don't know you know and to some degree styles still do make fights it's why that is such an enduring cliche it was a bad style matchup for for Lopez in the end because Ortiz came out so confident because he stuck to that game plan so well because he had the size, speed and footwork to really expose the areas of Teofimo's pure boxing game that are not up to code. That's cutting off the ring. That's being able to establish a jab consistently to set up his right hand when the plan A's of his attack aren't working those things still aren't there we've seen flashes of that from Teofimo where he wasn't quite there in those areas but he's been able to overcompensate with the explosiveness that he

typically brings and I was waiting in this fight as his dad's urging him out in the corner wondering if he was going to get that late knockdown that might just save the night for himself, where he finally would time the moment, leap in and land it. It wasn't there because Ortiz fought brilliantly, but he also fought negatively. But in fighting negatively, it may have cost him the fight. It did not cost him, though, exposing Teofimo. So where do we go from here? Who is Teofimo Lopez Jr. right now? I know he's a sublimely talented guy who, when the style matchup makes sense and when his mind is right, he can be so much better than you thought he could be. He proved that against Lomachenko and Taylor. But I don't think Thursday night's fight was a result necessarily of the chaos in his life. I've been interviewing Taylor Fimo Lopez since he was a,

you know, like 10 and 0 prospect. And the folks, folks the pr folks at top rank would say hey bc for your podcast i know it's early but we got this guy called himself the takeover he'd talk your face off has these you know poor poor man's muhammad ali type of feel of how he grabs a microphone and grabs the moment and brands it let's not forget tail female when he was 23 24 was giving you those one punch knockouts, then doing backflips and doing Fortnite dances long before your boy BC dad over here jumped into the Fortnite game. By the way, Aaron Bronstetter on Fortnite now trying to get me to share my name thing so we can start playing against each other. I'm willing, Bron, Abron, all right? I do weird stuff like that in the evenings, okay? That's how I get down in the eighth row, but back to boxing here. I felt Teofimo from an armchair psychologist standpoint, having interviewed him

to varying degrees over the years, we've always had a very good rapport, but Teofimo is wild. Sometimes he gives you reasons to believe he's crazier than he is. Sometimes you can tell he's trying to hold it in and it's still shooting out, whether it's the, you know, tumultuous relationship he seems to have with his dad and trainer in the corner. Although yet at the same time, his dad seems to have with his dad and trainer in the corner. Although yet at the same time, his dad seems to become a source of comfort from him. Don't forget, Teofim was now divorced. But when he had that that that short marriage and went into the wedding, most of his family was so against the pairing of him meeting this older woman falling in love right away.

I mean, maybe not dissimilar from the late Kobe Bryant and Vanessa and how his family weren't in support. But, you know, his dad was the only person that went to the wedding to represent the family. So there is sort of this anchor that his dad brings, but also chaos. But I felt Teofimo this week was being the maestro. He was being the puppeteer.

He was sort of playing us in certain areas. He was developing this mini trash talk thing with keshawn davis on the stage of the of the media day press conference thing they had we'll get to keshawn in a second because he boldly called out teo femo after scoring the biggest win of his young career but i thought we had a styled in teo femo who who knew what needed to get done i don't think this poor performance from teo had anything to do with that we're normally especially you know coming into that taylor fight when all the interviews who knew what needed to get done. I don't think this poor performance from Tao had anything to do with that. We're normally, especially, you know, coming into that Taylor fight

when all the interviews from Tao Fimo were all over the place. When we know about the divorce, the bitter custody battle, you know, it was coming out in interviews. Tao Fimo was leaking sort of information that year. He was almost unsure if he wanted to, but he was because he lives his life always very open.

I think this was just a poor style matchup and a huge wake-up call to Team Teofimo. That again, when the style matchup benefits them, when their speed and explosiveness, like it was against Josh Taylor, along with a very smart game plan, is just too much to counteract, he's going to look spectacular. He's going to look pound for pound. But every style, every fighter inevitably has a kryptonite a a a formula that could get them if that person has the requisite survival skills to stay in there a chin or in ortiz's case that quickness in in elusiveness to be able to avoid getting tagged by the big punch i mean let's be honest lopez was outlanded

in this according to compu, 80 to 78 overall. So it was a horrible fight, to be fair. Entertainment-wise, it was 10 set times, but it was largely a horrible fight. Lopez is only outlanded by two rounds, but his output was way down, just way down in this fight. There's still some major things that they need fixing if the style matchup is not in their favor. And even though I think Lopez deserves full credit

for the Lomachenko upset, of course he does. But let's also not forget two things. Lomachenko started very late in that fight, too late. He essentially punted the first half of it and allowed Lopez to bank rounds where when Lomachenko made that inevitable adjustment. The same adjustment he made to Jermaine Ortiz two years ago in Ortiz's biggest fight to date, which also came in a losing performance, his only loss coming in, where Ortiz fought so well early,

pushing a Lomachenko who was not that far removed from wartime in Ukraine. But when Lomachenko makes that second half rally, he takes over. He made that rally against Devin Haney in a very close loss, which I thought Lomachenko won. He made that rally to edge out Jermaine Ortiz late, and he almost edged out Teofimo late. The difference was Teofimo landed those big punches in round 12 to kind of put that exclamation point on anyone who thought that fight was super, super close. Now, granted, when you go back and look, those scores were wider than I think the fight we saw.

I think we largely saw a seven rounds to five win for Teofimo in that one. But when the fight stylistically is not favoring, he's got to be able to make these adjustments better. Tim Bradley's right. He's got to be able to cut off the ring. I mean, Tim Bradley was getting in arguments with Joe Tess and Mark Kriegel on the post-fight show that they have on the app there.

And aggressively, emotionally pointing out all the things that Teofimo's not doing right technically that cost it or could have cost him or maybe should have cost him in this. Yes, it's a survive in advance. But if he doesn't get those technical things figured out, you're not going to beat Terrence Crawford. You might not even be competitive with Terrence Crawford. And let's look in your own division. I not going to beat terence crawford you might not even be competitive with terence crawford and let's look in your own division i'm going to be devin haney who is the master at distance control the master at hit and not get hit there's only two

fighters today i'm in three if you put terence crawford in there maybe terence crawford should be number one in this conversation but i always say this i don't like comparing people to people in the past i don't like saying who's the floyd mayweather today because floyd is so damn special it's given his flowers i know i've been a long time critic of certain areas but obviously floyd's the freaking man what have i been doing during this mk break a lot of delta eight row eight sit and watch in every floyd mayweather fight over again from beginning to end just marveling at the brilliance of it terence crawford certainly shows you a command and a nastiness that can be Floyd like at times although even Floyd wasn't that nasty but I reserve the whole idea of who looks like Floyd

today to only two people and I've said it before I'll say it again it's Shakur Stevenson who really from the southpaw stance seems to own the ring in a Floyd way that's Devin Haney it's Devin Haney it's that precise technique knowing where be, knowing where not to be, just everything about that. Teofimo is going to struggle with those guys if he doesn't figure it out because that plan A and even that plan B is not going to be enough. So lessons learned, but this wouldn't be the first time in this case that somebody with a lot of fanfare had sort of a flat tire survive and advance situation. And that's what Lopez has there.

Because in hindsight, you'll just look at that as a close win on the, you know, you'll might remember the circumstances, but it will just go down as a win. So Lopez and company need to go back to the gym and figure out some of this because the names that they were calling out, I mentioned he was all over Crawford coming in.

It's not going to help him. So let's talk about one name there that he doesn't want to fight. And that's the co-main event on this evening. If you don't know Keyshawn Davis, he was one of the bigger amateur prospects in the U.S. in recent years. Won silver at the 2020 Olympic Games. Of course, that happened in 21 in Tokyo. He is dynamic as a young boxer, showing us such a technical command,

but also showing us some fire in the key moments. It doesn't have huge power, but can be a finisher because he's so precise. Yes, he took on a 35-year-old Jose Sniper Pedraza, who of late has become more of an opponent and a name to guys either at the title level or about to be. Yes, this is the second half of it. I'm not trying to say that that's prime Sniper. It's not. In fact, it was an older gentleman coming back down to 135, which may have compromised him. But he also wasn't a corpse fully out there. Pedraza constantly pushing the

pace and trying to make it a rough fight inside to try to compensate for the lack of speed and technique disadvantage that he had against Keyshawn. But Keyshawn was sublime on this night for such a young fighter to come in and to just, it looked a little bit like young pretty boy Mayweather against Arturo Gatti. It really did. It was just a dismantling. You knew the stoppage was inevitable. So Keyshawn Davis gets this huge moment against the first really big name

on his career where you're like, man, can he go, can he be in a potentially competitive fight for the full 12 rounds? It wasn't competitive. It didn't matter. His offensive onslaught was just chef's kiss. And so was the post-fight interview, which was the opposite of the post-fight interview we got from Teofimo, which I'll get to in a second. In the post-fight interview, you get a Keyshawn Davis who aggressively comes out and says, Teofimo, you talk some game. You talk some shit lately.

I'll come up to 140. Let's do this. First of all, what balls he has, as Cheech and Chong once famously said. Love that. Love that. Also, he's got a style matchup potentially against Teofimo. That if Jermaine Ortiz was able to do that against him by being quicker, slicker, negative at times, I don't think you want to face somebody who can box this well.

And I think if you go now to the post-fight interview of Teofimo Lopez, which was all over the place, in one sense, he's praising Jesus as king. Well done. Well done in my personal editorial stake. But then the sentence before that, he's dropping a, a, a, you know, kind of awkward.

I don't want to repeat what he's saying, but you know, there was, you know, you got all you critics can S a D no H Mo. I mean, just stuff that, that shouldn't be in the post-pandemic interview.

Just, just sort of an immature thing. But what I hated even more was his even more immature response to when bernardo osuna who did a good job at jumping in the post-fight interview and trying to interrupt teo because tail is all over the place he's talking about quotes that the egyptians said when building the pyramids that didn't make a lot of sense he's dropping odd historical notations in there but bernardo cuts to the chase and osuna's a veteran i love that guy by the way all outside the cameras love that guy he says look well what about what about moving

forward what about kishan calling you out here's the quote from a very emotionally jazzed up and fired up uh teofimo who i did feel was sort of using that thing where he's being extra defiant, maybe to try to hide his own sort of not embarrassment, but his own understanding that that fight was a lot closer than maybe it should have been or that he expected. And that maybe he pulled one off on boxing. Maybe he was lucky to survive in advance. But here's this quote. Come on. We're talking about a lightweight over here, Lopez said when referencing Keyshawn Davis. He hasn't done anything. It's just like Lomachenko told me. If you want to fight me, go go get a title if you want to fight the king go get the world title i'm not going to give it to you guys everybody wants it easy the only thing easy here

are my skills um lopez also was just aggressively chastising Ortiz for running. I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't running because Ortiz was making tail look bad. And because there was just enough offense from Ortiz to have a, have a say in the dispute, the debate of this disputed decision. But as we established, in my opinion, it just wasn't enough offense, but to come out and just throw everybody in the category of runner. And then to so blatantly just be like, Oh, Keyshawn, you got to earn it first, man. I'm not going to deal with you until you win a world title.

And I'm like, well, he might just go, he might just move up to one 40 and do that. Okay. He might just do that. Especially if he's not going to be set up to be paired against your curse Stevenson, who's still at one 35, but has teased himself major move ups. That just made Lopez look bad straight up. Be honest with you. That just made him look bad. Made him look like he's now trying to duck that guy. And all the talk about Crawford, I'll meet you up in a catchweight, he said afterwards. Crawford just just just dropped

the deuce on him on Twitter, just, you know, as did a lot of fighters. And I think they had the right there because Teofimo was presented as the showman and he is he's giving you the crazy interviews at times that are making you question things and then he came out with with a very flat performance in which his dad needed to get in his ear and i thought his dad actually who's been maligned at times thought his dad had the right analysis for him at the right times telling him to get away from that one punch at a time style telling him to try to throw more combinations either teo wouldn't commit or he just couldn't get ortiz to stay put. But again, that goes back to his inability to cut off the ring. And that's why I love Tim Bradley,

again, cutting through any potential conflict of the promoter network exclusive relationship and just giving you real raw, honest analysis. It was spot on. It was a weird night for Teo Fimo Lopez, a very weird night. There were a bunch of things said in that post-fight interview that again make you kind of question his sanity. But I think his sanity right now is actually fine. I think he's just got to round out this game because there have been certainly some elements along the way of Lopez relying on his explosiveness and his athleticism

to bail him out in key spots. You're not going to do that against the truly amateur trained sublime boxers who know how to use distance to make you look bad. If he can figure out that hole, if he can learn to box off of his jab when needed, even against a southpaw, even against a southpaw. I think, you know, I made comparisons to this Ortiz Ortiz Lopez fight to Rigondon Donair. There's looser comparisons to De La Hoya versus Pernod Whitaker. But a lot of people thought Whitaker won.

It was a close fight. Maybe Canelo Lara is another comparison. I think in this case, though, Teofimo wasn't or I'm sorry, you know, Ortiz wasn't offensive enough. I thought Lara beat Canelo, but I understand why the judges didn't give it to him. Canelo was coming forward and pushing that fight. And I think in a lot of cases, people still look back and say, okay, Pernell Whitaker got screwed against De La Hoya. I don't think he got screwed. I think it could have gone either way, but I think De La Hoya was offensive enough, working in the lead right hand against the Southpaw and kind of using it as a jab to get in.

He at least was trying to break down or was succeeding in breaking down in ways that Lopez just wasn't. So I've said it so many times. Lopez is a reality show. This is probably going to be the norm. Every other fight, every two fights were questioning him when he looked in the camera against Sandu or Martine and now claims it was a setup. And maybe it was when he looked back at it of saying, do I still got it in his mind? That was, let me bait everybody.

Let me bring in the big name opponents that might not want to face me by being humble, by being, you know, falsely vulnerable. I don't think all that vulnerability is false. And that's the problem. Still time only 26.

He's already kind of into a nine lives version of his own career and how he sidestepped things that could have derailed him. He is a special force. He is a special mind, but he's got to go back and fix that. Let's close by talking about the big fight in this division. Looks like it's really going to happen. Mike Coppinger of ESPN all over this reporting. You're seeing multiple sources confirming here.

April 20th, his own pay-per-view, Devin Haney. I know Teofimo calls himself the king at 140 because he went through the lineal champion, Josh Taylor, the former undisputed champion who had a bunch of his belts

stripped when he didn't make the mandatories that the sanctioning bodies wanted. But Devin Haney on a pound-for-pound level is a better fighter than Teofimo. And his resume's catching up

really quick, too. I mean, he might not, you know what I'm saying? He's got the Lomachenko win now. He's dominated Rougarou to win a title at 140. It's a rough fight for Ryan Garcia. And it's always been the case. And Ryguy's been all over the place lately,

probably to a negative level in putting out these Instagram lives. I watched Instagram live last night quickly before the start of the Teofimo fight where he's just giving hair care tips to his male audience. I mean, look, Brian Garcia is a handsome man. There's that modeling side to him. There's that influencer side to him. But he's telling everybody about if you get a bottle of Juergens, not this MK lotion, you get a bottle of Juergens and you rub it together and push it

through your hair, it'll give it that hold and that shine. Okay, maybe it will. But Ryan Garcia is in the spot where this dare to be great nature which is becoming the theme again in boxing especially with the young american fighters no we're not quite there in the 1980s where everybody's a future hall of famer and they're all fighting each other where the four kings of haggler duran leonard and hearns fought each other nine times in 10 years we might have a group of four princes as karen mulvaney called them right theo femo ryan garcia tank davis devon haney and then the fifth of course is shakur stevenson who's coming they've only fought each other once though up to this point tank davis versus ryan garcia so

this will be fight number two but even though we want ryan garcia to make huge events it still feels too soon in how he was so dominated by Davis to, to kind of run back and even to arguably an even more difficult fight tank Davis and Devin Haney are very close in my eyes in terms of who's got the advantage. I'd probably favor Haney still in a fight between them because that length and that IQ and that speed and that understanding of pure boxing could give Tank issues. Although, obviously, look, Tank's a gamer. Tank catches up to your chin late.

He'll find out, right? But Haney's probably a harder fight. Now, look, from Garcia's standpoint, he's got the confidence level of having fought Haney and the amateur six times. Having supposedly split those fights three to three. But has Ryan Garcia fixed the issues that came out in the Tank Davis fight, which have been a recurring theme, even the Luke Campbell win, which was his breakthrough. No, I'm ready. I am of the silk. I'm a real fighter. He was a real fighter that night. Luke Campbell dropped him. Ryan Garcia got up and he finished him off and retired a very good

fighter. And Luke Campbell, a gold medalist, somebody who couldn't get over the hump in his biggest title fights, but a tough out. But a lot has happened since then. And Ryan Garcia's switching trainers left and right. And we know this whole sordid drama. It's good for the sport that this fight is happening and that it's happening April 20th. But I don't know if it's good for Ryan Garcia right now.

He's been trying to link himself with a bunch of different fights and prematurely announcing them before it's really true. Like the Rolly Romero fight. He seems to be at odds with Oscar De La Hoya, his promoter who it seems to be almost fighting to try to make his own fights as promoter and not including Ryan Garcia in the conversation. The fact that they made this fight,

especially with PBC now in the transition from Showtime to P to Amazon prime in which they're not kicking off until March 30th. And we don't know any more fights beyond the first one. It's made the first quarter of this year a little interesting as a boxing fan. Yes, you've got the Saudi Arabia angle, and they're making the big fights we need to see. June 1st, better B-Vol on regular ESPN, not a pay-per-view. Amazing. Tyson Fury's bad cut postponed the Usyk fight up to May 18th, but we're going to get Nganou

Joshua in March. Now we're getting Haney Garcia April 20th, and it's a huge fight. It's good for box. It's great for boxing, actually. Even better because it's now fight number two of this group of four princes or five young fighters that are poised to take over, but do seem motivated to fight each other. It's just that it's Ryan Garcia going out of his way to make these fights happen. That fight against Tank doesn't happen unless he bends to everything Tank asked for,

including the hydration clause, including joining in DAZN into a co-pay-per-view, but letting Showtime handle exclusively the production. We remember that drama. I don't know. I don't know if this is the right fight. I don't know if Ryan Garcia can go in there, potentially take a bad L and rebound. It would it would obviously depend upon his performance. He also is quick and explosive enough where he may surprise Devin Haney, not surprise him by upsetting him, but maybe surprise him by making it a different fight than we assume. But either way now, in just a few fights under Derek James as his new new new trainer, Ryan Garcia is going to have to make an incredible leap.

I want to say as a complete fighter, but I don't know if he's ever going to be a complete fighter, even just making his offensive output as dangerous as it can possibly be. He needs to make a leap to be truly competitive in this fight, but his star will make it matter. It'll bring attention. It's another huge fight for Devin Haney, who you have to say, him and his father, Bill Haney, his trainer, dad, manager, they have been brilliant

in how they have financially and promotionally set up their career. They're doing the thing that Miguel Cotto and Canelo couldn't do until they were established as pay-per-view stars. That thing where it's like, no, I'm only going to sign short-term contracts. I'm going to jump around.

I'm going to make the biggest fights possible. This is another one of those. One of the biggest fights you can make. Just wonder how many L's in the chamber against super elite opponents

does Ryan Garcia have. Can he rebound from this? Probably could, especially if he lost but showed out. It's going to be a lot of questions, but it's going to be an event.

It's going to be an event that matters, and this division certainly matters. And I hope this is just the beginning of course and getting the ideas of tank davis versus haney down the road would we need saudi arabia to make that fight happen i don't know i don't know i don't really know what's going on with pbc right now i'm encouraged their roster is huge they've got an interesting uh uh you know foundation here in amazon prime as a new distributor they got to come through and

make the big fights hopefully they will but you want to see these four or five princes fight one another multiple times and that's how you make hall of famers that's how you make a vibrant era heavyweights are always going to sell better and draw more attention than everyone else and we've got a still we're still in the heavyweight Renaissance. We're the 2015 upset of Tyson Fury over Vladimir Klitschko has created a bubble that has not burst yet. We still need to see Fury versus Joshua and Ghanu versus everyone. Like there's matchups. Obviously we need to see Fury versus music.

Oh, sick. First and foremost, but welterweight was always that pay-per-view division, which held up the sport when heavyweight couldn't. At times, it's been middleweight, one of the classic divisions ever, right? But 140 is no longer just a, you know, JV forming line to lead everybody to 147. All those stars from lightweight have moved up, and this is where we are.

Teofimo Lopez adding just another chapter and ripple to this division's lore at the moment and his own arc up to this point. Hey, it was great being back with you guys. Brian Campbell, of course. You know me, right? MK is coming back, and it's coming back with a bang in March on a full-time basis. We're finalizing everything. There's a lot going on behind the scenes to make the storefront ready for the grand reopening. And I think you guys are going to be very excited.

Continue to support everything we're doing at CBS Sports, everything Luke Thomas is doing on his solo channel. We will be back next week, Luke and BC, Morning Combat on this here channel, getting you ready for UFC 298. And to see if Alexander Volkanovsky can take that 35 and over curse and shove it right up the behind of old LT. Right. Do you see that?

At least that commercial from bulk. I love it. You're playing on that stat of that 35 and over that old God commercial. Well done right there. It's been a long December. It's been a long winter, right? For me in the Northeast,

not getting to do this show on the regular, but this time will be well spent. It'll be worth it. We'll see you guys on the other side. We'll see you guys next week. So thank you so much. Thank you, as always, to Mikey Mormile here of CBS Sports for running the show that we've got going on. Guys, thanks for checking in.

Keep yourselves together here, okay? Look, if you can control anything during an uncertain season, control yourself. Control your mind. Control your body. Control, you know, what you have access to control during this time. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm getting into the best shape of my life. Shout out to my trainer, Darren Robinson.

Shout him out. Look him up. Look him up, okay? You're over 40. You want to change your life? Look up my guy on Instagram. Go after it. Darren Robinson. Changing my life right here. One bite at a time. One curl at a time. That's how we do it. That's it. Boxing's still great, guys. We're going to have a great year.

MK's still great. It's going to be an even better year. MorningCombat.store for all of your merch needs. We've got a hat sale going on. Tell RJ that BC sent you. We are out of here.