As Top Rank promoter Bob Arum sat down with Marcos Villegas of Fight Hub TV he touched on the topic of what will come ext for Teofimo Lopez, who won’t be retiring from boxing after all. During the segment Arum acknowledges Lopez’s retirement announcement was a bit of a ploy, but looks forward to having him back in the ring soon before setting him for a much bigger fight next year.

Arum on the plans for Teofimo Lopez

“Well, we want to bring Teofimo back this year, and then make him a real big fight next year. So he proved in the Josh Taylor fight that he still has it and that he’s a top, top fighter and the public wants to see him again.”

On if he bought into Lopez’s supposed retirement announcement

“I didn’t buy it but it was sincere on his part because he was having certain personal problems that he believed would go away if he announced the retirement.”

On his working relationship with Lopez right now

“As far as I know the relationship with Teo and Top Rank is very good, couple weeks ago he was at my house for lunch and Jeremy Koegel and I had a three-hour lunch with him so I don’t see any animosity or anything like that. You know, like with all of them, down the line he might want to start his own promotional company — they all do. And I don’t take that as any kind of affront.”

On the potential of matching him against Ryan Garcia next year

“Yeah, I’ve talked Oscar, I’ve talked to Eric, who are good friends. And they would like to make that fight. It depends on their relationship with Ryan and I don’t want to get into it because I don’t know enough about it. But if they can truly produce Ryan, that would be a huge fight for both guys and I would certainly be interested in it, Do a co-promotion with Golden Boy is something that we’ve done very often.”

On how he thinks Lopez matches up with Garcia

“I think if Teo is right nobody beats him at 140. I really believe that. If Teo is distracted with personal problems, then Garcia who really punches hard can win by knockout. So again, when you’re dealing with fighters, you don’t know what you’re gonna get from fight to fight with a lot of them.”