George Kambosos Jr. has said that any previous interactions with Teofimo Lopez Jr. count for nothing, as ‘it’s war now’ between the pair.
Unified lightweight champion Lopez is set to meet his mandatory IBF challenger on June 5 in Miami, though the details are yet to be officially confirmed.
Speaking to BoxingScene.com, Kambosos explained that they had already met twice in recent years and there was no bad blood at the time.
They first met in 2019 at a Top Rank Card for Richard Commey vs. Ray Beltran in California.
“This was destiny. I could feel it,” Kambosos recalled.
“The whole thing has been destiny between me and Lopez to fight. We met in 2019 and we took a photo together when we contenders coming up. I don’t know if he had that vibe but I had that vibe and I go to myself, ‘I’m gonna cross paths with this kid.’”
“No serious words exchanged. We knew who each other were,” he said.
“It was fine when we spoke to each other. It was just a quick chat but I just knew our time would come. It’s crazy how I predicted this. I thought when we took that photo this was a future mega fight.”
They met again at the end of 2019 when they both fought in New York on the undercard of a Terence Crawford fight. Lopez beat Commey for the IBF title, and Kambosos defeated Mickey Bey.
“We spoke about him traveling to Greece. Obviously, I’m a proud Greek,” Kambosos said.
“He said how much he loved Greece and the food. No bad vibes. That was then. Now that the fight is done, we’re fighting. There’s no peace. F--- peace. It’s war now. I’m not coming for peace. Whatever was in the past, whatever interaction we’ve had -- and we’ve been gentlemen to each other -- that’s fine. But now it is war. Everybody knows I’m a proud Greek-Australian. I have that warrior, that Sparta in me. My family is from Sparta so I believe I have the blood lines of (Sparta king) Leonidas himself, so we’re going to war. If he wants a war, he’s getting one.”
Kambosos hit out at Top Rank’s chief Bob Arum, who failed to secure the fight for his company and fell out with Lopez in the process. Arum has talked down the fight’s attractiveness.
“Bob’s got to worry about his issues with his own fighter and not worry about me,” Kambosos said.
“For a non-marquee fight it done pretty well in the purse bid didn’t it? Bob needs to relax because he’s fighting with everybody right now. He can’t keep himself quiet.
“The guy’s 89 years of age. Relax. I know he loves to smoke some weed, so maybe he’s gotta smoke a little bit more and chill out because it’s done. The fight’s happening. He didn’t win the purse bid. Work out your issues with your own fighter. You want to call me whatever you want -- a good fighter, not an elite fighter, this is not a marquee fight, well there’s been many fights that have shocked the world.”
Despite an impressive shock win over Vasiliy Lomachenko to claim - Lopez believes - the undisputed title of the division, Kambosos claims to have not been impressed by his last outing.
“I don’t want to put this kid down with that win because he beat Lomachenko,” Kambosos said. “We all saw it and the facts are the facts. Lomachenko was either scared or – he didn’t throw any punches in the first seven rounds. We saw a guy that threw minimal punches, ran, was afraid of this guy and then he suddenly opened up and started throwing shots and put Lopez on the back foot and it looked like he might stop Lopez.
“He hit Lopez with big shots, he rocked him a few times. Like Lopez started to gas. What’s gonna happen when you’ve got a hungry young guy like myself, hasn’t made huge money yet, who hasn’t won all the titles yet, who hasn’t been a two-time Olympic gold medalist, come straight at you ready to throw punches? Let’s see how good his gas tank is. I believe he has engine problems. I see it. And one guy who does not have engine problems, and you can see it by my fights, is George Kambosos Jr.”