‘Cause This Is Triller! Triller Wins The Rights To Teofimo Lopez’s Unified First Title Defense
In a surprising turn of events, Triller has won the promotional rights to Teofimo Lopez’s first fight as a unified lightweight champion.
The IBF held a purse bid for Lopez’s upcoming WBA, WBO and IBF lightweight title defense against George Kambosos Jr. As expected, Top Rank, Lopez’s promoter was present in the purse bid, as was Matchroom Boxing. What was unexpected was Triller’s Ryan Kavanaugh participating as well. They won the rights with a winning bid of $6.018 million. Top Rank bid was $2.315 million while Matchroom’s bid was $3.506 million.
$6Million from Triller! Goodbye world 🌎🍾 #LopezKambosos
— Teofimo Lopez (@TeofimoLopez) February 25, 2021
Triller has not announced when and where it plans to put the title fight. Triller is the platform that aired the exhibition match between Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. last year and is planning on staging a fight between Ben Askren and Jake Paul.
Due to the current IBF rules regarding purse bids, Lopez gets 65 percent of the winning bid. However, Top Rank is entitled to 20 percent of Lopez’s cut ($782,340). That leaves Lopez with a purse of $3,911,700, a career-high for the young champion. As for Kambosos, he gets $2,106,300 with a percentage of it going to his promoter Lou DiBella. Regardless, Kambosos has a career-high payday for his next fight as well.
Kambosos (19-0, 10 KO) won the right to be Lopez’s mandatory challenger when he won a title eliminator against former champion Lee Selby last October. Kambosos is the No. 1 ranked lightweight in the IBF and WBO rankings.
Lopez quickly emerged as one of boxing’s top stars with a career-defining win over Vasiliy Lomachenko last year. That fight aired on ESPN and was one of the most-watched boxing fights on U.S. television in the past decade. Lopez won the IBF title in December 2019 when he stopped Richard Commey in two rounds and followed it up with the win over Lomachenko to be a unified champion last October.
Negotiations for the fight against Kambosos began some time ago, but stalled after Lopez wanted Top Rank to pay him a bigger purse after dethroning Lomachenko as the top lightweight in the world.
The IBF ordered a purse bid after a 30-day deadline passed once it was clear that all parties wouldn’t get a fight deal done in a timely manner. A purse bid set for February 18 moved to February 25 after a snowstorm hit New Jersey, where the IBF’s offices are located.
