Teofimo Lopez Jr. (pictured) won the Sugar Ray Robinson Award as the Boxing Writers Association of America's 2020 Fighter of the Year. In 2020, Lopez proved he could beat the best, with his electrifying October victory over Vasiliy Lomachenko, making him the undisputed lightweight world champion. Fight fans around the world noticed. So, too, did the boxing media. Lopez beat out a class that included Canelo Alvarez, Gervonta Davis, Tyson Fury, Errol Spence Jr. and Joe Smith Jr. Lopez also became the first American to win the BWAA Fighter of the Year award since Floyd Mayweather in 2015.
“I’m very appreciative of this,” Lopez said. “It’s been a long journey and this is just the beginning. What I can say is this is a true big win for us. It’s surreal. Sometimes I still think this is a dream for us, but we turned that dream into reality. Every fighter that I look down on the list of past BWAA Fighter of the Year award winners are in the Hall of Fame, or going into the Hall of Fame. Now I’m a part of that group and that history. It’s something no one can take away from me. There is so much more that we can do.”
Lopez’s selection is the crowning moment for Team Lopez, which won the BWAA’s coveted triple crown by winning the BWAA’s fighter, trainer and manager of the year awards for 2020. It was once a rare occurrence, though with Lopez chosen as Fighter of the Year, Teofimo Lopez Sr. chosen as Trainer of the Year and David McWater of Split-T Management selected as Manager of the Year, the BWAA triple crown has been achieved for the third time in the last four years.
“I never expected this,” Lopez Sr. said. “This is a tribute to all of the hard work that we put in. I was thinking about my son. I wasn’t thinking about any awards, so to get this from the BWAA makes me a part of history and I’ll be in the boxing books forever. It’s a great honor and I don’t plan on letting anyone down.”
Lopez Sr. was selected over a distinguished list that included Robert Garcia, Sugar Hill, Derrick James and the BWAA 2019 Trainer of the Year Eddy Reynoso.
“Getting this award is pretty exciting and very vindicating,” McWater said. “It involved a lot of hard work, and it’s especially sweet because I felt last year Keith Connolly (the 2019 BWAA Manager of the Year) deserved it so much, which I felt gave the award more credibility than in the past. It’s a tribute to our whole company at Split-T. Everyone at Split-T has so much to be grateful about for Teofimo and his father. Their awards couldn’t be more deserving.” McWater won out over a distinguished class that included Connolly, Peter Kahn, Rick Mirigian and Reynoso.
