Teofimo Lopez challenges for Rolando Romero’s WBA welterweight title this weekend, and ahead of the action, two-time welterweight world champion Shawn Porter has revealed his fight prediction. 

Lopez famously dethroned Vasyl Lomachenko to capture the unified lightweight world titles in a shocking upset win back in 2020, but lost the belts to George Kambosos Jr in the outing that followed, prompting a move up to super-lightweight.

There, Lopez handed Josh Taylor a first career defeat and claim the WBO super-lightweight crown, managing three title defences before losing his strap to Shakur Stevenson at the beginning of the year and moving up once more.

Now, on his welterweight debut, Lopez attempts to put an early end to ‘Rolly’ Romero’s reign and tee up a unification showdown with Ryan Garcia, who hopes to defend his WBC title for the first time when he faces Conor Benn next month.

Speaking on ‘The Porter Way Podcast’, ‘Showtime’ Shawn Porter declared that he is expecting a statement performance from Lopez, forecasting that ‘The Takeover’ will win on the cards.

“There is an expectation for him [Lopez] in this fight, to really show up – and I think that he is going to show up and that we are going to get one of those Josh Taylor, we didn’t see this coming-type of performances. 

“I think that is the version that we get, I think that he forces Rolly to fight back, but I think this fight goes the distance.”

Romero-Lopez takes place on Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.