With this weekend’s main event honored with a massive championship outing, reigning Scottish champion Josh Taylor faces one of the biggest challenges of his undefeated career so far – clashing with former lightweight champ, Teofimo Lopez.
The pay-per-view event is set to headline New York City’s Madison Square GardenTaylor, who boasts a 19-0 professional record, recently improved on his unbeaten run, defeating Jack Catherall with a close, split win at home in Glasgow, Scotland back in February of this year.
18-1 as a former professional WBA and WBO lightweight champion, Lopez’s first and so far only professional boxing loss came against former world champion, Jorge Camposos Jr. back in November 2021.
He put his championship on the line in a massive match against Lopez, Taylor He enters this weekend’s Madison Square Garden event as a fairly tight -185 bet to defeat the former champion at BetWay..
And despite his last two career wins on the circuit since dropping his championships to Camposos Jr. in 2021, Lopez is currently sitting as a tight +160 underdog to win back the championships this weekend in New York City against Taylor.
Taylor, a native of Prestonpans, defended his light-welterweight gold against Lopez this weekend at Madison Square Garden, winning the WBA and WBO championships in 2019 in a landmark victory over Regis Prograis.
3-0 in championship fights since then, Taylor Abinnon has defeated Kongsong, Jose Ramirez and the aforementioned Catterall since 2020.
In other notable career victories, he defeated Taylor O’Hara Davis, Miguel Vazquez, Ryan Martin, and Ivan Barnaczek.
After losing the tournament to Camposos Jr. in 2021, Lopez rebounded successfully with back-to-back wins over both Perdue Campa, and in December of last year, “Mecca” stole a split win over Sandor Martin.
16-0 before vacating his title in 2021, Lopez scored noteworthy victories over Ediss Tatley, Richard Comey, and former world champion, Ukrainian Olympic gold medalist Vasily Lomachenko.
Taylor took part in a run-in leading up to this weekend’s event and has expressed that he didn’t have time for any of Lopex’s antics throughout the fight week.
“He’s just talking the ultimate waffle, only on waffles, it’s nonsensical and I can’t be bothered listening to him,” said Josh Taylor. “It’s just boring and you don’t make any sense so I got up and said, Look, I’m away. I’ll get my dinner and go to bed, see you on June 10th.”
In more odds and bets available with BetWay, Taylor has found himself starkly favored to end the fight via strikes, resulting in a KO or TKO win at Madison Square Garden this weekend, and is currently the -240 betting favorite to stop Lopez.
For the Brooklyn native, the hometown fighter and challenger is currently positioned as a fairly high +500 bet to end the fight against Taylor via KO or TKO for the lightweight championship.
Combined throughout their illustrious and gold-studded careers, Taylor and Lopez have each racked up 26 career knockout victories, with both men being stopped 13 times by knockouts each.