Arum and Hearn lost the promotion bid for the fight Lopez – Kambosos

Ryan Cavanaugh’s Triller Fight Club has won the promotion rights for Teofimo Lopez’s compulsory title defense against Australian George Kambossos Jr. Triller CEO offered a whopping $ 6,018,000 in promotions held Thursday at IBF headquarters in Springfield, New Jersey, remotely via Zoom conference call for out-of-state promoters.

Cavanaugh’s sum far exceeded Matchroom Boxing’s $ 3,506,000 offer, hoping to host the duel on DAZN and Top Rank, a promoter of Lopez whose $ 2,315,000 stake was not enough to host the meeting on the ESPN platform.

The promotion auction took place due to failed negotiations that began last fall. Lopez Jr. (16-0, 12 KOs) took part in the unification fight for the world lightweight titles with Ukrainian Vasily Lomachenko (14-2, 10 KOs) on October 17, knowing that the winner will be obliged to fulfill the obligations to defend the IBF title …

Lopez won by unanimous decision, which was enough to secure his Fighter of the Year title in the 2020 pandemic.

Thanks to this, the undefeated 23-year-old lightweight also earned the WBA and WBO titles, which will be on the line in his upcoming fight with Kambosos. Lopez also won the WBC franchise title, although this title is not transferable. Top Rank should have requested this status for Lopez in case he defeated Lomachenko, who was previously named the WBC franchise champion in October 2019, after which he left his “regular” belt vacant.

The current WBC lightweight champion is Devin Haney (25-0, 15 KOs).

Kambosos (19-0, 10 KO) was made Mandatory after a tough unanimous decision win over former champion Lee Selby.

After Lopez and Kambosos won their victories in October, preliminary discussions began on their duel. Promoters Bob Arum (Lopez) and Lou DiBella (Kambosos) were keen to sort things out prior to bidding, as did their respective managers David McWater (Lopez) and Peter Kahn (Kambosos).

However, negotiations have stalled due to internal problems of Lopez’s team. The undefeated lightweight king felt that it was time for his promoter Arum to shell out and insisted that he had agreed to a lower fee for his fight with Lomachenko and that it was time for proper compensation ahead of his scheduled title fight. There was talk that Lopez was ready to travel to Australia, Sydney or Melbourne, where Kambosos would have an advantage in terms of audience support.

The IBF stepped in as soon as it became clear that negotiations were deadlocked, first by formally calling for a title fight and a 30-day negotiation period that began on January 8th. The deadline was 8 February and negotiations did not progress further, prompting the IBF to schedule an auction for 18 February. The session was postponed for a week due to a blizzard that hit much of the northeastern United States, including New Jersey.

According to the bidding terms, in any sanctioned IBF title bout, the reigning champion is entitled to a 65/35 split in his favor. In terms of the proposed amount, Lopez is expected to earn $ 3,911,700, which he will have to split with Top Rank, as the company is no longer a promoter of the upcoming fight. The remaining $ 2,106,300 will go to Kambosos and his team.

Triller Fight Club made its boxing debut last November with a highly successful pay-per-view night in which the main bout featured an eight-round show fight between two boxing legends Mike Tyson and Roy Jones.

Details of when Triller Fight Club plans to organize Lopez – Kambosos were not announced at the promotional auction.