Juan Manuel López

This article is about the boxer Juan Manuel López. For the basketball player, see Juan Manuel López Iturriaga ; on the chess player see Juan Manuel Bellón López .

Juan Manuel López
Juan Manuel López with the WBO Latino super bantamweight title
Data
Birth Name	Juan Manuel López Rivera
Fight name	Juanma
Weight class	Featherweight
nationality	Puerto Rican
birthday	June 30, 1983
place of birth	Río Piedras
style	Southpaw
size	1.66 m
Range	1.75 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	43
Victories	36
Knockout victories	32
Defeats	6th
draw	1
Profile in the BoxRec database

Juan Manuel López (born June 30, 1983 in Río Piedras as Juan Manuel López Rivera ) is a Puerto Rican professional boxer and former WBO world champion in superbantam and featherweight.

Amateur career

Juan López played 150 amateur fights, of which he won 126. In 2001 he secured the silver medal at the Pan American Championships in San Juan , when he was only stopped in the final by Elio Rojas . At the World Championships 2001 in Belfast , he was eliminated in the first fight against the Romanian Bogdan Dobrescu.

He won another bronze medal at the Central American and Caribbean Games in San Salvador in 2002 when he lost to Abner Mares in the semifinals . He was also subject to this at the 2003 Pan American Games in Santo Domingo .

In 2004 he took part in the Summer Olympics in Athens , but retired in the preliminary round by losing points to the Belarusian Khavazhi Khatsigov. Then he became a professional.

Professional career

Juan Manuel López made his professional debut in January 2005 and remained undefeated in his first 30 fights, with 25 of these opponents having a positive record. This included the Colombian Luis Bolaño (41-4). On June 7, 2008, he beat Daniel Ponce de León (34-1) in the first round, becoming the new WBO super bantamweight champion. He was then able to defend the title against César Figueroa (30-6), Sergio Medina (33-1), Gerry Peñalosa (54-6), Olivier Lontchi (18-0) and Rogers Mtagwa (26-12), with only had to go over the full number of laps with Mtagwa.

After the Mtagwa fight, López switched to featherweight and also won the WBO title here when he had an early win against Steven Luevano (37-1). He was then able to defend the title early against Bernabe Concepcion (29-3) and Rafael Márquez (39-5).

In his third defense of the title on April 16, 2011, he surprisingly lost due to technical knockout in the eighth round against the Mexican Orlando Salido (35-11). So López lost his first professional fight so far, had to give up his title and lost his position as number 1 in the world featherweight rankings. After a subsequent win against Mike Oliver (25-2), he then lost the rematch against Salido in April 2011. In June 2013 he was defeated by Miguel García (31-0) in the fourth round.

In March 2014 he came back with an early win against Daniel Ponce de León (45-5), but suffered two early defeats by the end of the year against Francisco Vargas (19-0) and Jesús Cuellar (24-1).

After two years of abstinence from the ring, López boxed against Wilfredo Vázquez junior (24-6) in October 2016 and defeated his compatriot prematurely. Then there was a scandal when there was a fight in the ring between López and Vázquez 'coach Albert Rivera. López and Rivera were subsequently suspended from the Puerto Rican boxing association.

He did not play his next fight until March 3, 2018 and lost by TKO in the twelfth round against Jayson Vélez (25-4).

predecessor	Office	successor
Daniel Ponce de León	World Superbantamweight Boxing Champion ( WBO ) June 7, 2008–23. January 2010	Wilfredo Vázquez junior

predecessor	Office	successor
Steven Luevano	Featherweight Boxing Champion ( WBO ) January 23, 2010–16. April 2011	Orlando Salido

Web links

• Profile in the BoxRec database