Triller Pulls Out Of Promoting Teofimo Lopez vs. George Kambosos, Title Fight In Doubt

Triller has officially thrown in the towel on promoting Teofimo Lopez vs. George Kambosos.

Just months after Triller Fight Club put on their first event which saw Mike Tyson return against Roy Jones Jr., which was a massive success, they rocked the boxing world on Feb. 26 as they won the rights to promote Lopez’s undisputed title fight with an astoundingly high bid of $6.018 million.

Since then, there have been several date changes and Triller’s COO told Yahoo Sports it has given up on promoting the IBF mandatory title defense between Lopez and George Kambosos as it re-charts its course.

COO Thorstein Meier said that Triller will no longer promote what many consider ‘freakshow’ fights and instead they will try to create a new entertainment platform that combines well-known musical acts and legitimate and competitive boxing matches.

After Lopez tested positive for COVID-19, the fight was moved and then was moved dates a few more times and now after the $10 million in the hole, Triller has pulled out of the fight.

“[With] the advertising we’d lined up, the performance marketing we’d lined up, the radio spots, the television spots, all this stuff, quite frankly it’s fair to say that at the moment, we’re between $9 million to $10 million in promotional dollars, promotional money, that we’ve spent to promote this fight,” Meier told Yahoo Sports. “We’ve gotten nothing out of it and … this is why we’re saying enough is enough.”

Lopez vs. Kambosos was supposed to happen on June 5 but was moved as they didn’t want it to be the same weekend as Floyd Mayweather vs. Logan Paul. It was moved to June 19 but Lopez tested positive for COVID-19 shortly thereafter. The next date was October 4 in New York but that came and went with no fight or anything. It was also going to go up head-to-head with Monday Night Football, just days before Fury vs. Wilder 3 and a day before the Yankees playoff game. With that, Oct. 4 didn;t work.

“That was totally my mistake,” Meier said of putting the fight on Oct. 4. “Put that totally on me. I thought that 10/4 would be a great date for the venue, and for a pay-per-view because nothing else was happening. Something was happening, a very big NFL game. Everybody started yelling at me and telling me we should do it on a day where there is nothing else happening. And quite frankly, I started freaking out because I knew the IBF’s cut-off date [to stage the fight] was 10/17.”

With Triller pulling out of the fight, it’s uncertain if Lopez will still fight Kambosos next. If that is the fight, Eddie Hearn and Matchroom Boxing had the second-highest bidder on Feb. 26, bidding $3.506 million. Meaning, if the IBF doesn’t rule Kambosos in default, Hearn’s bid would become the winner leaving Lopez to only get $2.28 million while Kambosos would earn $1.23 million. They would then owe money to their promoters in Top Rank in Lopez’s case and Lou DiBella in Kambosos.

What do you make of Triller pulling out of Teofimo Lopez vs. George Kambosos?