Is this fight ever going to happen?
It’s hard to keep track of when the lightweight championship bout between Teofimo Lopez Jr and George Kambosos Jr is happening.
This otherwise routine title defense which Lopez should easily win could potentially be rescheduled yet again, this time to October 16th from October 4th per Triller’s Ryan Kavanagh to Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour. Even with tickets already on sale for this show at Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden, the show could be rescheduled for Brooklyn’s Barclays Center with a Verzuz rap battle that same night.
Let’s rewind a bit.
The first date for this matchup, which Triller won via purse bid, was June 5th. Then when Floyd Mayweather vs. Logan Paul was booked for June 6th, Triller pushed Lopez vs. Kambosos Jr back by two weeks. Lopez contracted COVID-19 and the June 19th date was suddenly off the table and the new date was targeted for August.
After Triller tried putting this show in Australia, Lopez’s team put their foot down and said no. Sure enough Triller’s next move was to book the card for Tuesday, October 5th at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden. It is decidedly not normal these days to run any boxing pay-per-view outside of the weekend, let alone a Tuesday.
Plot twist! Suddenly this card was bumped up to October 4th, so as to avoid a potential New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox playoff game should they meet in the Major League Baseball postseason. Now after being moved up, there’s a chance it’s moved back.
This is supposed to be a one-off for Lopez, who was at odds with his promoter Top Rank but has since signed a new contract. This mandatory title defense still needs to be taken care of before he returns to Top Rank and the ESPN family of networks.
It turns out that even for normal boxing matches, Triller can’t help but make that a circus too.