Teofimo Lopez is finally getting the pay-per-view headliner he’s been asking for, but it won’t be against Jaron “Boots” Ennis.
Lopez is reportedly finalizing the third defense of his WBO super lightweight crown against former IBF champion Subriel Matias. Lopez vs. Matias is expected to headline an ESPN+ pay-per-view event on March 15 at an undetermined location in the U.S.
ESPN was first with the news on Monday.
Matias (21-2, 21 KOs) picked up the vacant IBF title in February 2023 with a fifth-round corner retirement win over Jeremias Ponce, which marked the fourth of five consecutive wins for Matias by way of corner stoppage. The Puerto Rican then successfully defended his belt against Shohjahon Ergashev on the David Benavidez vs. Demetrius Andrade undercard in November 2023 before signing with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing.
Matias lost in his homecoming defense in June after Liam Paro masterfully boxed to pull off a major upset decision win, but he rebounded in November with a second-round knockout of Roberto Ramirez.
Lopez (21-1, 13 KOs) won the WBO championship by outboxing Josh Taylor in June 2023 for a conclusive points victory. The Brooklyn native has since made two defenses of his belt in 2024, winning a close decision over Jamaine Ortiz in a poor performance before pitching a shutout over the little-known Steve Claggett.
Lopez was previously negotiating to face Ennis in what would’ve been a major bout in U.S. boxing, but a fight never materialized between the pair. According to Ennis’ promoter Eddie Hearn, the IBF welterweight champion instructed Hearn to focus his efforts on securing a unification bout for “Boots” rather than prioritizing a bigger mainstream matchup against Lopez.
“There was definitely conversations between Matchroom and Top Rank on that,” Hearn told FightHubTV about Ennis vs. Lopez.
“Some numbers were discussed. We had to kind of halt those because our strict instructions from Ennis are, ‘I want to unify, and if I can’t unify, I’ll either move to [super welterweight] and fight [Vergil] Ortiz or potentially we could fight Teofimo Lopez.’ I like the Lopez fight, but all he wants to do is unify.”
The mandatory challenger for Lopez’s WBO belt will be determined by an upcoming final eliminator contest between Jack Catterall and Arnold Barboza, which was officially announced Sunday afternoon for Feb. 15 in Manchester, England.
