Lightweight Teofimo Lopez Jr., perhaps boxing’s No. 1 prospect, will undergo right hand surgery on Friday morning in Los Angeles.
In what was supposed to be his toughest test as a professional, Lopez, 20, injured his hand in the first round of a one-sided sixth-round knockout of William Silva, whom he knocked down in the first, fifth and sixth rounds, on Saturday night at Lakefront Arena in New Orleans. The fight was the co-feature on the Top Rank Boxing on ESPN card headlined by the Regis Prograis-Juan Jose Velasco bout.
Lopez visited hand specialist Dr. Steven Shin in Los Angeles on Wednesday and was diagnosed with a displaced fifth metacarpal and a shaft fracture, Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti told ESPN on Thursday.
Lopez, who is in a soft cast, is expected to fight again in the fall, Moretti said.
“The prognosis is for a positive result from the procedure,” Moretti said. “Teo will fight once before end of year. Late November or December is the most likely time frame.”
Lopez (10-0, 8 KOs), a Las Vegas resident who was a 2016 Olympian for his parents’ home country of Honduras, had predicted he would knock out Silva in the fifth round. Instead, it took a few seconds into the sixth round for him to get the job done.
For Silva (25-2, 14 KOs), 31, of Brazil, it was the first stoppage loss of his career. His only previous defeat came by a 10-round decision to then-prospect Felix Verdejo in 2016.