Teofimo Lopez a talented fighter, won’t be taking him lightly - Richard Commey

IBF lightweight champion Richard Commey (29-2, 26 KOs) will be back in action on Saturday at Madison Square Garden, defending his strap against challenger Teofimo Lopez (14-0, 11 KOs). And leading into the bout Commey admits that he hasn’t seen Lopez perform much, and that he’s leaving it to his team to come up with a proper game plan to retain his belt.

"To be honest, I have not seen a lot of him. I leave all that to my trainer. I trust him to come up with a game plan, which I train hard for, and as long as I execute it properly, I will come away victorious. It has worked so far.”

Commey did, however, catch a Lopez outing earlier this year against Edis Tatli, a fight Lopez would win by fifth round knockout.

“My co-manager Michael Amoo-Bediako took me to MSG to see him fight Edis Tatli,” said the 32-year-old Ghanaian. “Tatli did not put up much of a challenge, so (Lopez) was hard to assess on that. But from what everyone is saying, he is a very talented boxer, so I will not be taking him lightly.”

Lopez would later take on Masayoshi Nakatani — a fight he didn’t particlarly look great in — and in the post-fight interview admit that Nakatani’s height gave him problems and that he would try to stay away from tall fighters from now on. Those comments didn’t go over great with fans, but I guess he’ll get what he wants here as he and Commey are at least listed at the same height.

In the meanwhile Commey isn’t getting himself wrapped up in the hype surrounding Lopez, saying every young prospect is suggested as the next big thing since Floyd Mayweather retired, though none of them have really put in the work that Floyd did to earn his place at the head of the table. Commey finishes by saying he’s not interested in all that ‘taking over boxing’ shit, he just wants to win fights and titles and let the people decide after he’s retired how good he was.