Antonio Tarver Backs Teofimo Lopez to Dethrone Rolly Romero in Vegas

Antonio Tarver has landed on Teofimo Lopez to hand Rolando 'Rolly' Romero the first loss of his welterweight reign when the pair meet in the early hours of Saturday at Las Vegas' T-Mobile Arena. The former undisputed light heavyweight champ told Fight Hub TV that Lopez—entering as a slight favorite—still carries the elite-level tools to outbox Romero over the distance.

Romero, 29, is making the first defense of the WBA welterweight belt he was upgraded to last year, after dropping and outpointing Ryan Garcia over 12 rounds in May 2025. Lopez arrives on shakier footing: 'The Takeover' is coming off a surprisingly one-sided decision loss to Shakur Stevenson in January, when Stevenson (now 25-0, 11 KO) took his WBO super-lightweight title.

Tarver's Read on the Fight

Tarver's logic is straightforward. He doesn't believe Romero can outbox Lopez round after round, so Rolly's path runs through his power—hurting Lopez, scoring a knockdown, maybe even forcing a stoppage. Anything short of that, in Tarver's view, and the judges' cards belong to Lopez. He called the points route the smart money, arguing that beating Romero requires a genuinely elite operator, and that a peak Lopez still fits that description.

The context makes this a coin-flip in temperament as much as talent. Nobody's quite sure which Lopez shows up—the fighter who beat Vasiliy Lomachenko and George Kambosos, or the version Stevenson picked apart. If he lets his hands go and commits to volume, Tarver expects him to win impressively. If he fights tentative, Romero's power gets its window.

The Road Not Taken

This bout only exists because Lopez's other options fell through. Romero had been linked to fights with Devin Haney (33-0, now WBO welterweight champ) and Conor Benn (25-1) before a year of inactivity pushed him toward Lopez instead. Benn, meanwhile, is booked opposite Garcia—the same Garcia (25-2, 20 KO, WBC titlist) that Romero beat to get here in the first place.

A win keeps Romero relevant in a stacked 147-pound division and opens up those Haney and Benn talks all over again. For Lopez, victory would make him a three-weight world champion and immediately erase the sour taste of the Stevenson defeat. Tarver's picked his side. Now Lopez has to prove the old champ right.