Josh Taylor Claims Teofimo Lopez Fight Won’t Go Past Six To Eight Rounds

Josh Taylor doesn’t expect his fight against Teofimo Lopez to last that long.

Taylor is set to go to New York to defend his WBO 140-pound title against Lopez. It’s an intriguing matchup as Lopez is looking to become a two-division champion but Taylor is confident he will KO Lopez sometime before the eighth round.

“My fight with Teofimo Lopez ends up the same way, except it’s me knocking him out,” Taylor told analyst Mark Kriegel during an ESPN broadcast (via BoxingScene). “I’m completely 100% confident that this fight doesn’t go past six to eight rounds.”

Part of the reason why Josh Taylor is confident he will finish Teofimo Lopez is due to the fact that the American has looked at 140lbs. He thinks Lopez has lost a step and isn’t the same fighter he once was so he expects to bully Lopez and get the stoppage win.

“He didn’t look too good in his last fight,” Taylor said of Lopez’s decision over Sandor Martin last December. “But I’m not preparing for that last performance. I’m preparing for the best version of Teofimo Lopez. But still, that won’t be enough to beat the likes of myself. He’s gonna say the same thing about my last fight, and my last fight was a pile of dog’s dung as well.”

Currently, Taylor is the -152 favorite while Lopez is a +120 underdog so the oddsmakers do expect this to be a close fight. With odds that close, it’s also favored to go later and possibly the distance, but Taylor is confident he will be able to break Lopez and get a stoppage win to defend his titles.

Do you think Josh Taylor will finish Teofimo Lopez?