Teofimo Lopez has expressed his discontent with boxing politics regarding the current situation which sees multiple WBC titles in his weight class.

The WBA, WBC ‘franchise’, IBF and WBO lightweight champion insists he deserves to be recognised as the undisputed king of his division after dethroning Vasyl Lomachenko last year, though many still refute this.

Mikey Williams/Top Rank

Lopez has the WBA, WBC ‘franchise’, IBF and WBO lightweight titles

Lopez first won the IBF belt in December 2019 and then agreed to jump straight into a unification with WBA, WBC and WBO champion Lomachenko.

However, prior to this, Loma was upgraded by the WBC to become their ‘franchise’ champion.

This meant that ‘interim’ champion Devin Haney was upgraded to take Loma’s spot as standard world champion.

Fast forward to now and there are two WBC lightweight champions – ‘franchise’ champion Lopez and the standard champion Haney.

As a result, there still remains plenty of dispute surrounding Lopez’s undisputed status – something that certainly irks him.

He told talkSPORT.com: “You know they did this to me back in the US Olympic trials of 2015.

“In 2015, I won the US Olympic trials for USA for the Olympics.

“For the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. I won it, I earned it, in Reno, Nevada.

“Go back and see the list – Shakur Stevenson, Nico Hernandez, Antonio Vargas, Gary Russell. Teofimo Lopez was on that list.

Lopez shocked the world and beat Lomachenko aged just 23

“And you know what they did with that?

“They gave me a damn piece of s*** medal – gold, but it wasn’t gold – it said, ‘132lbs winner’.

“They pushed me to the side and then they put this other guy named Carlos Balderas, they put him in there, in the ring, while I had to watch after winning the Olympic trials.

“[I was] crying at 18 years old, seeing them do the political s*** that they do in this sport.