Former champion Luis Alberto Lopez’s return to action will reportedly be his first homecoming bout since 2021
Salvador Rodriguez reports that former IBF featherweight champion Luis Alberto Lopez will return to action on March 29th in his native Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico.
Lopez (30-3, 17 KO) rose to prominence with high-profile upsets of Gabriel Flores Jr and Isaac Lowe before edging out Josh Warrington for the belt in 2022. Successful defenses against Michael Conlan, Joet Gonzalez, and Reiya Abe followed, leading to an October 2024 showdown with Angelo Leo in Albuquerque.
Leo wound up smashing Lopez with one of 2024’s most violent one-punch knockouts in which Lopez reportedly suffered a brain bleed that one of his co-managers blamed on rabbit punches. In that same article, said manager claims that Lopez would receive a follow-up MRI after six months before making any commitments; if we backdate it to the night of the knockout, yesterday would have been the deadline, so it seems he got some good news.
Still, it’s hard not to look at this with trepidation, especially after Shavkat Rakhimov’s recent scare. That was a capital-B Bad knockout, and considering how reliant Lopez is on his durability to maximize offensive output, it’s anyone’s guess whether he can still utilize the style that carried him so far. Fingers crossed we don’t have another Miguel Berchelt situation on our hands.
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