Teofimo Lopez Admits Game Plan Failed Against Shakur Stevenson
Teofimo Lopez is offering his clearest explanation yet of the night Shakur Stevenson took his titles, and he is not blaming the judges or a bad decision. Speaking this week as he prepares to challenge Rolly Romero for the WBA welterweight championship on Saturday in Las Vegas, Lopez said the problem started with the plan he brought into Madison Square Garden.
The comments land differently than the ones he made before the fight. Last winter, Lopez promised to expose Stevenson and called his style a facade. Now he is describing a fighter he always respected, and a matchup he is no longer sure he timed correctly.
“I’d say what went wrong would just be the game plan… and possibly just taking a fight with Shakur, at that particular time,” Lopez said.
The result on Jan. 31 left little room for debate. Stevenson won a unanimous decision by scores of 119-109 on all three cards, taking Lopez’s WBO and The Ring junior welterweight titles at The Ring VI.
Lopez fell to 22-2 with 13 knockouts. It was only the second loss of his professional career, after George Kambosos Jr. dethroned him by split decision in 2021 and ended his run as unified lightweight champion.
Stevenson improved to 25-0 with 11 knockouts and became a four-division champion in his first fight at 140 pounds. He moved up from lightweight without a tune-up and still made Lopez miss, controlling the distance with a sharp jab while the Brooklyn fighter struggled to get inside.
Lopez had been a steady champion at junior welterweight, with title wins over Josh Taylor, Jamaine Ortiz, Steve Claggett, and Arnold Barboza Jr. He entered the Madison Square Garden main event as the man holding the belts and still dropped 11 of 12 rounds on every scorecard.
What he says he misread was the way Stevenson would fight him.
“I always knew Shakur had the goods,” Lopez said. “I just thought he would be more offensive.”
That distinction sits at the center of the loss. Lopez has always been most dangerous in exchanges, the same instinct that carried him past Vasiliy Lomachenko in 2020, when he unified the lightweight division.
Stevenson never gave him that kind of fight. The Newark southpaw stayed in the pocket he has always preferred, using movement, range, and the jab rather than the firefight Lopez appeared to be waiting for.
Lopez is not arguing that he was robbed. He is saying the timing of the bout and the strategy he used to solve Stevenson were the issues, a notable admission from a fighter who spent the promotion talking as if Stevenson’s caution would be a weakness at 140.
The 29-year-old has not fought since that January night. After the loss, he turned down an IBF title opportunity against Lindolfo Delgado and instead moved up to welterweight for a shot at Romero on Aug. 22 at T-Mobile Arena.
Romero, 17-2 with 13 knockouts, will defend the WBA welterweight title in a Premier Boxing Champions pay-per-view on DAZN and Prime Video. The two have sparred together and have described each other as friends, though Lopez has said everything is at stake following the Stevenson defeat.
A win on Saturday would make Lopez a three-division champion and put a belt back around his waist less than seven months after he was outboxed in New York. It would also be the first chance to show whether the lesson he is taking from Stevenson changes the way he prepares for an elite opponent.
His latest comments also close a public argument he started last fall. Lopez had called Stevenson boring, talked about putting him to sleep, and framed the fight as proof that Stevenson’s style would not travel up in weight.
Stevenson answered that in the ring. Lopez is now answering it in retrospect, and the picture he is drawing is less about disrespect than about a game plan that never forced the undefeated champion to fight on Lopez’s terms.
There is no rematch on the calendar. Lopez said before the fight that the contract did not include a rematch clause, and Stevenson remains the WBO and Ring junior welterweight champion.
Saturday against Romero is the next test. If Lopez’s read on the Stevenson night is honest, the job in Las Vegas is not to wait for a brawl that may never come. It is to bring a clearer plan into a title fight, at a new weight, against a champion who will not need an invitation to engage.