Fight seen as ‘now or never’
Lopez and Berto see welterweight bout as perhaps last chance to rise through ranks.
Josesito Lopez wants to return to where he was, and the best way to get there is by impressing those back home.
Just minutes from where he lives in Riverside, welterweight Lopez (33-6, 19 knockouts) has a Friday night main event at Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario against former welterweight world champion Andre Berto (29-3, 22 KOs).
“I’m motivated to win, and what better to put on a great performance in front of my home crowd?” Lopez said. “To fight a fight of this magnitude and come out with the victory. … I’m focused.”
The bout headlines the second card of Premier Boxing Champions, a series of fights created by powerful boxing manager Al Haymon, and will be televised by Spike TV (tape delayed at 9 p.m.).
Lopez catapulted to prominence in 2012, when he replaced Berto in a welterweight main event at Staples Center against Victor Ortiz and produced an upset victory in toe-to-toe form, breaking Ortiz’s jaw and forcing him to retire on his stool after nine rounds.
For Lopez that was followed by a lucrative but nearly impossible-to-win bout against junior-middleweight Saul “Canelo” Alvarez three months later that Lopez lost by fifth-round technical knockout.
He returned in a June 2013 main event against Marcos Maidana at StubHub Center in Carson but couldn’t handle the Argentine’s power and was stopped in the sixth round.
After three victories over pedestrian opponents, Lopez, 30, is back in a fight of note against Berto, who has recovered from careerthreatening shoulder surgery and also seeks greater purses. Lopez has said, “It’s now or never.”
“I’m ready for those [bigger] fights, I am one of those best fighters, I belong there,” Lopez said. “I’m going to show the world.”
Berto, 31, also feels the inspiration of desperation.
“I didn’t think I was going to be able to be in this position to fight anymore,” Berto said in a recent conference call with reporters. “It was just so taxing on me.”
Berto suffered two swollen eyes and was defeated in a November 2012 appearance at the Ontario arena by Robert Guerrero, who parlayed that triumph into a date against Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Friday’s co-main event is a welterweight bout between recent champion Shawn Porter (24-1-1, 154 KOs), who was beaten by England’s Kell Brook in Carson in the summer, and his former sparring partner, Roberto Garcia (36-3, 23 KOs).
Garcia, 34, has won eight consecutive fights dating to a loss in Mexico against former welterweight champion Antonio Margarito in 2010.
“I’ve had fun with him, but we’ve been boxing. I’ve been boxing him as a friend,” Garcia said of the sparring with Porter. “Now, I’m not going to get in there as his friend. To be honest with you, I don’t even know him anymore.”
The Spike TV portion of the card will begin at 6 p.m., with Riverside’s former heavyweight title challenger Chris Arreola (35-4, 31 KOs) fighting Florida’s Curtis Harper (12-3, eight KOs).