Teofimo Lopez

About

Teófimo Andrés López Rivera (born July 30, 1997) is an American professional boxer. He has held multiple world championships in two weight classes, having previously held the unified lightweight championship and the World Boxing Organization (WBO) junior welterweight title; He also held the Ring magazine lightweight and junior welterweight titles.
As an amateur, Lopez represented Honduras at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Lopez was born to Honduran immigrants on July 30, 1997, in Brooklyn, New York. His paternal grandfather, a Spaniard from Ávila who was born in 1916, emigrated shortly after the Second World War, going to Brazil first before settling in Honduras. His father, Teofimo Lopez Sr. left Honduras with his mother at age 5, settling in Brooklyn. The family eventually relocated to Florida, where Lopez Sr. first started training his son at the age of 6.

Lopez won the U.S. Olympic Trials but Carlos Balderas had already secured the United States’ sole lightweight entry into the tournament as AIBA’s World Series of Boxing champion, so Lopez was aware entering the trials that at best he could only qualify as an alternate for Balderas (who lost in the…