Teofimo Lopez told anyone who would listen how much he disliked Vasiliy Lomachenko for months before they finally took it to the ring on Saturday in Las Vegas, and handing the Ukrainian his second professional defeat hasn't changed anything on that front.
The unbeaten Lopez, who added the WBA (Super), WBO and The Ring lightweight championships to his IBF title win an impressive unanimous decision victory over heavy pre-fight favorite Lomachenko.
Reaction to the prospect of a second showdown between the two has been fairly non-committal but laced with doubt. Promoter Bob Arum has said he will talk to the fighters about it before letting them decide, while the champ's manager David McWater feels there is no benefit to running the grudge match back.
Lomachenko himself admitted to Ukrainian media that Lopez holds all the cards after his win, but the Honduran-American's own comments on the matter were emphatic.
"F--k him," Lopez told TMZ. "I won fair and square.
"I not only beat him at his own game, but being off for 10 months and fighting the guy people said was the best pound-for-pound.
"I'm the king now," Lopez said ... "I've always been the king. I was just the underground king. Now, I've been crowned."
Lopez went on to explain why nothing has changed between he and his rival.
He continued: "I went up to him [after the fight] and I said good fight. I grabbed his father, I said safe travels, pretty much saying goodbye to them because I knew I won.
"But he didn’t want to give me back that same gesture -- instead he just started laughing like... [he's thinking] what am I doing here [in their corner].
"So, I was like whatever, I did my part. The fighting's done, I whooped your ass … you cut me, head-butted me and sh-t but it's fine."
The theme continued when Lomachenko did not attend the post-fight press conference.
"That just shows what kind of champion he really is," Lopez said.
The 23-year-old elaborated on his opponent's questionable tactics in an interview with ESPN.
"I saw that he wanted to throw with me, so I said 'okay, we're gonna throw together then,'" he explained. "But that's when the head-butt came in.
"I got cut, he did some of his dirty tactics but we still got the job done. I think we did it the best way that people didn't expect us to do."
Lopez also had very little time for talk of Lomachenko carrying a shoulder injury into the fight. The 32-year-old had successful surgery on Monday on a pre-existing issue that was aggravated during the bout.
Said Lopez: "The thing is, that people need to understand... I was coming into this fight injured as well, if we want to talk about injuries, but I didn't make any excuses about it.
"This is just part of the sport, you are never going to come in at 100% in boxing or any type of combat sport. You're never going to be 100% going in there," Lopez explained.
"I think by him doing that [revealing the shoulder injury], as someone who was considered the best pound-for-pound boxer in the whole world, and to use that excuse - I think it just looks more bad on him than anything else."