Eight different dates, six venue changes, multiple lawsuits

Teofimo Lopez bounced off the ropes, thrusting his entire body into each side of the ring, before stopping in the center and doing a backflip. Then he lay down on the mat and added a few snow angels for good measure.

Lopez had plenty to be exuberant about on that October evening in Las Vegas. Not only did he pull off the upset to dethrone pound-for-pound stalwart Vasiliy Lomachenko; he won the fight in impressive fashion.

At that moment, the undisputed lightweight champion — the WBO, WBA, IBF lightweight titleholder and WBC franchise champion — looked forward to a transformative and busy 2021. But that wave of joy quickly turned to frustration.

When boxers hold multiple titles, there’s a rotation system utilized to decide which sanctioning body’s No. 1 contender receives his championship crack, and when. First up for Lopez (16-0, 12 KOs) was a fight with Australia’s George Kambosos Jr., the IBF’s mandatory challenger. If the 24-year-old were to take care of the sizable underdog, Lopez would be able to move on, perhaps, to a fight with WBC titleholder Devin Haney, rising star Gervonta Davis or maybe even social media sensation Ryan Garcia.

But this is boxing, a sport that laughs in the face of the best-laid plans. The matchup with Kambosos (19-0, 10 KOs) was first slated for May 29, more than seven months after Lopez bested Lomachenko. Four hundred days have now passed since Lopez stepped into the ring. But on Saturday, after eight different date changes, the pair will finally square off at New York’s Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden (8 p.m. ET, DAZN).

“It goes to show how strong I am, that’s what I learned from all this,” Lopez, ESPN’s No. 1 lightweight, said of the long wait. “The timing of the man above is always perfect.”

The road to Lopez-Kambosos has involved everything one might expect from a sweet science soap opera: in-fighting between boxer and promoter, accusations of wrongdoing from all involved parties, and of…