Luis Alberto “Venado” Lopez (30-2) had another impressive performance Saturday night when he stopped Reiya Abe (25-4-1) in eight rounds in Verona, New York. Victory marked his third successful defense of the IBF featherweight title. 

Their fight served as the co-feature underneath Otabek Kholmatov-Raymond Ford.

BoxingScene.com caught up with Lopez’s manager, Hector Fernandez de Cordova, afterwards to get his thoughts on what unfolded.  

Lopez had been targeting a unification fight with the WBO champion Rafael “Divino” Espinoza, but Espinoza appears headed towards a rematch with Robeisy Ramirez. 

With his favoured fight being unlikely, Fernandez said that they would like to move up to 130lbs to target the winner of the March 29 showdown between Oscar Valdez and Liam Wilson. 

“We want the winner of Valdez and Wilson,” Fernandez told Boxing Scene. “We would move up for that fight and really want the fight with Valdez. We would move back down to 126 after that fight. Our goal is still to unify titles at featherweight,. 

Lopez has recorded 13 consecutive victories. His last defeat was in 2019, by Ruben Villa. 

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