Ryan Garcia Hits Back At Teofimo Lopez, Says He Didn’t Destroy Vasiliy Lomachenko
Ryan Garcia hit back at recent comments from unified lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez.
Lopez recently stated he wouldn’t give Vasiliy Lomachenko a rematch before questioning the popularity of other lightweight fighters such as Garcia who he claimed was only famous on the internet.
Garcia wasn’t going to let that slip by as he responded to those comments and also spoke of Lopez’s unanimous decision win over Lomachenko.
“(Lopez) goes ‘they hot on social media, I’m hot in real life.’ Like, what are you talking about, man?! Like I got respect for you, you a great fighter, you won that fight with Lomachenko…but the fact that you would say that is nuts to me,” Garcia told FightHype (via BadLeftHook). “I just beat Luke Campbell so you can’t really say anything about my boxing ability. Like, don’t make a lie. It’s one thing to say something but don’t lie. It don’t sit right with me. Don’t lie. Don’t lie that we’re not hot. You’re kinda hot, I mean, you’re scratching the surface. To be honest, Teofimo is far behind, far behind getting to the level that we’re at.
“Respect, you beat (Lomachenko). Great job. Respect. Did you destroy him? In my honest eyes, no you didn’t. You didn’t beat him like I would want to beat him. I would want to knock him out. That’s how I feel good about a victory, knocking you out, or just outclassing you nasty — which I honestly don’t believe he did. I thought he did good, I thought he fought a pretty good fight, but nothing that (really impressed me).”
Lopez, of course, defeated Lomachenko in their October title fight to become the unified lightweight champion.
With no rematch clause in the initial contract, it looks like Lomachenko won’t be getting a chance to regain his titles as he is now slated to fight Masayoshi Nakatani instead.
However, Garcia feels the Ukrainian is deserving of a rematch, especially given the nature of Lopez’s win.
“I see that Lomachenko just felt gun-shy for some reason,” Garcia explained. “I mean, he got hurt twice. He got knocked down by [Jorge] Linares and got hurt by Luke Campbell. So in that he thought that Lopez may be an even harder puncher than them, so he was gun-shy in the beginning — which makes sense — but then when he figured out it ain’t really as bad it seems, he started beating him up.
“Like Teofimo was getting beat up a couple of the rounds. Like bang bang bang bang bang — his head looked like the Fierce Reflex bag…his eyes were all swelled up, was beaten up. So I don’t like when he tries to make it seem like he destroyed Lomachenko. And then to say ‘oh, he don’t deserve no rematch.’ Man, you didn’t beat his ass! Excuse my language but you didn’t whoop him down to the point where it was like undeniable, like ‘why would you give him a rematch?’
“Be a man, man. You didn’t beat him down. You did alright, but he does deserve a rematch in a way. If you don’t want to give it to him, I’ll take him. But I’ll be going to knock him out. I’ll make it real clear I’m not here to play…”
Do you agree with Garcia?
