Romero (17-2) defends his WBA welterweight title against Lopez (22-2) on August 22 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Teofimo moves directly from losing his WBO light welterweight title to Shakur into a championship fight at 147.
That’s an enormous opportunity for a fighter coming off the kind of defeat Teofimo suffered against Shakur.
Stevenson didn’t squeak past him. He won 119-109 on all three scorecards and landed 165 punches to Teofimo’s 72. Teofimo left Madison Square Garden without his title and with far less leverage to secure the money fights he wants.
He may be one of the softer champions available at 147, but his belt is real currency. Beat him, and Teofimo doesn’t have to approach Devin Haney, Ryan Garcia, or Conor Benn as the fighter Shakur just dismantled. He can approach them as a three-division champion carrying the WBA welterweight title. That’s why this fight exists.
Teofimo has already talked about facing the Garcia-Benn winner after Romero. Those fights become easier to sell if he arrives with a championship belt rather than trying to cash in on his name after another poor performance. The bigger question is whether BoMac gives Teofimo too much credit by treating Rolly as an automatic win.
Teofimo hasn’t consistently looked like the fighter who beat Vasiliy Lomachenko in 2020. His performance against Josh Taylor was excellent, but it increasingly looks like an exception.
George Kambosos Jr. beat him. Sandor Martin gave him fits. Jamaine Ortiz made him look ordinary for long stretches. Then Shakur took him apart. Something hasn’t been the same.
Remaining at 140 pounds too long may have contributed to it. Teofimo himself blames the weight for the Shakur performance and believes moving to welterweight will help him. It’s also fair to wonder about the physical toll of the Lomachenko fight, although there’s no evidence connecting that night to Teofimo’s later inconsistency.
What can be established is that the spectacular lightweight who blew through Richard Commey while outboxing Lomachenko hasn’t shown up consistently since.
Romero is awkward, technically crude, and heavy-handed. He already ruined the plans of a much bigger star when he dropped Ryan Garcia to win a unanimous decision last year. That victory eventually left Rolly holding the full WBA championship after Jaron Ennis vacated. If Teofimo is anywhere close to his best, BoMac may be correct about the outcome. Asking why the fight was made misses the entire business calculation.
Teofimo doesn’t need Rolly because Romero is one of the best welterweights in boxing. He needs him because Rolly is a beatable champion holding a belt that can turn Teofimo from Shakur’s latest victim into a three-division champion with leverage. The belt is the product, and Rolly is simply the man holding it.
