Luis Alberto Lopez vs Reiya Abe in Verona, NY on March 2

Luis Alberto “Venado” Lopez (29-2, 16 KOs) will defend his IBF featherweight world title against Japanese contender Reiya Abe (25-3-1, 10 KOs) on Saturday, March 2 at Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, New York. The fight will air live on ESPN.

Lopez is all-action every time he steps in the ring, and he started to turn heads when he knocked off Top Rank Boxing prospects like Andy Vences and Gabe Flores Jr. in 2020 and 2021.  

Then three fights after beating Flores, he travelled to England and captured the world title by defeating Josh Warrington in his hometown of Leeds in December 2022. 

Cementing his road warrior status, he defended his crown in Belfast besting hometown hero Michael Conlan via TKO 5. In his 2nd title defense, last September, he defeated long-time contender Joet Gonzalez via UD 12. 

He is now set to defend against mandatory challenger Abe. And, while he isn’t looking past him, he does have his eyes on unification fights and an eventual move up to 130 pounds. 

Nobody would confuse Lopez with Willy Pep, as he keeps his game simple and straightforward. The bell rings and he is coming at you. He walks you down and looks to get you out of there. And in recent interviews he certainly made it sound like he doesn’t plan on hearing the final bell in this upcoming fight. 

Lopez also knows that Abe is probably looking to move more than slug, so they are preparing for a fighter that is going to box.

“We’ve gotten tall southpaws who move a lot because we’ll need to neutralize Reiya Abe’s legs. We’re going to need to cut the ring off a lot, so we’re preparing for his style of fighting,” said Lopez from his California training base. “He’s a very slippery fighter. He doesn’t really like to brawl. So, it’s going to be difficult to catch him in the early rounds. But we’ve got great sparring partners”, he said.

And while his preparation is currently locked in on Abe for the upcoming fight, he certainly has some long-range plans after this assignment.

“My long-term goal is to fight the other champions and become a unified champion,” he said. “Honestly, I want to unify the titles quickly and establish myself as a great champion and then move up to 130 pounds.”

But before that, it is go-time with Abe and that means fireworks from Lopez.

“The fans know I give everything in the ring. I always look for the fight. I always try to win by knockout. It’s going to be a real war”, he said. “It’s going to be a bit complicated in the early rounds”, he continued. “But everyone knows when I step into the ring it’s always going to be a war."