The boxing life came easy for Nelson Lopez Jnr seeing as he was born with it in his blood.

The son of a Filipino mom and a Cuban father, who was intrinsically involved in the sport, Lopez has – at the age of 47 – spent his life submerged in the sport. 

Living west of West Palm Beach, in Pahokee, Florida, he has signed up for his most significant undertaking yet, working with 39-year-old former heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder. 

“My dad was into boxing really big,” said Lopez Jnr, a dyed purple T-shirt struggling to contain his arms and stretched around his broad shoulders. “He was a promoter. He was a manager/trainer for a long time with Team Freedom, Luis DeCubas, he had Emanuel Augustus, Diosbelys Hurtado, he had Robert Daniels, Santiago Samaniego, Mauricio Pastrana… I grew up training fighters. I love training fighters. I love the training and all of that. He got into the management because, obviously, you can’t make money just training fighters, and then I was just helping him out, and I learned the management side and to make a better percentage we opened up a gym and opened up a camp, and I made a lot of moves doing visas. I was the guy that would find you that 17-0 Mexican kid, that either that could beat you up really bad or was the perfect opponent and looked good on paper.”

He would work with the likes of Brad Goodman and Bruce Trampler, the braintrust at Top Rank, getting opportunities through his dad but making the most of them, keeping his head down and staying out of the limelight. 

There was a time when it seemed like he was going to head up a Golden Boy East project, and Lopez Jnr said he helped work on the debuts for the likes of Errol Spence and Rau’shee Warren coming out of the Olympics.

“I’ve been around the business for a long time, from top to bottom,” he said, leaning back in his office chair. “And maybe I wasn’t known to the outside world. The fighters knew me, they knew who was bringing the opponent, the coaches knew me, and the people writing the checks knew me.”

He worked with Kanat Islam, whom he trained, managed, and promoted, and Lopez Jnr also put events together in Kazakhstan, working with the government. But arguably his most notable work to date came with Alycia Baumgardner.

He had taken a step back from boxing and had been working with BKFC, but there’s a real sense of pride in Nelson’s voice when he discusses Baumgardner. 

“Alycia Baumgardner was my main project; she was my prodigy,” he added. “I signed her 10 years ago when she was an amateur and I said, ‘Look, I’m gonna make you a unified world champion. I’m gonna do everything in my power, and you’re not even going to have to sign a contract with me.’ And I said, ‘I’m not gonna take a percentage. I want you to make it.’ We made a million dollars with Mikaela Mayer, I didn’t take a percentage. I outbid Eddie Hearn. You know how the WBC stuff works… It always benefits the promoter and I said I’m not gonna allow that. You bid $200[,000], I’m gonna bid $550[,000]. I won the bid, they were pissed. DAZN paid about $2m for her fight, so I figured $500,000 for a bid isn’t bad, a unification world title, and I went to DAZN the next day and they told me, ‘No.’ I know I’m not Eddie Hearn but I don’t need that much. Just give me 600 and we will get the fight done. Put it on TV. It’s a good fight. And they told me no and I got really discouraged and I was like, ‘Alright, I’ll do the fight and find a way to do it.’ We found a good partner and we put it on for free. It was on Roku TV. All those networks got a lot of views and it helped her get out of her contract. Now she’s signed to Jake Paul.”

Lopez Jnr is the CEO of Trigon Combat and the founder and CEO of the Global Combat Collective (GCC).

Trigon looks to help develop amateurs to pros while GCC is “a unified platform for fighter development across multiple disciplines, while creating new business opportunities for brands, promoters, and athletes.”

Now, working with Wilder, he’s on familiar territory having fielded a call from someone asking whether he could help them find an opponent for Wilder, whether he had a promoter’s license, and if he knew of a suitable venue.

“If you want me to do it, let me do the event,” Lopez Jnr replied.

With that, Wilder fights Tyrrell Anthony Herndon on June 27 at the Charles Kock Arena in Wichita.

Wilder, of course, is coming off two losses. He was defeated on points by New Zealander Joseph Parker, and then was stopped by Zhilei Zhang last June.

“We know the business,” said Lopez Jnr. “We’re not gonna call it a comeback, because it sounds like he fell off. We’ll call it legacy reloaded. He’s healed up, he feels great, he wants a real shot but, at the end of the day, what we really want is that money fight, that AJ [Anthony Joshua] fight. This is the first step towards that.”

Lopez Jnr said Joshua’s promoter, Hearn, knows their strategy. It starts with the Herndon fight, and then Wilder is set to fight again in December, but overseas in a fight Lopez Jnr said he will have minimal involvement in. “I don’t want to put none of their business out,” he said.

A Joshua fight would come in 2026.

But it’s been a torrid period for Wilder in the ring, with the losses, the camps, shoulder surgery.

“I think he just needed some rest,” said Lopez Jnr. “I’ve seen fighters deteriorate staying super busy. Some fighters just need that rest. He was injured, fighting with an injury. When you get a medical suspension, there’s a reason to rest and say, ‘Hey.’ The medical suspensions are minimal. If they say six months, you should take a year. Anytime you fight, you get knocked out like that, you’re suspended for a good 180 days. You’re not allowed contact for 90 days, so they make that the minimum that you can get medically cleared of. But to be fully, fully ready… When [Manny] Pacquiao got knocked out by Juan Manuel [Marquez], he didn’t fight for a year…”

Lopez Jnr said working with Wilder was a two-way fit; it was a great opportunity for him while he could assist Wilder with getting where he needs to go.

And it all starts in, of all places, Wichita. 

“I went to Wichita for a reason. Nothing happens in Wichita. That means there’s an economic impact check that’s coming,” Lopez Jnr explains. “It’s in a college, and no one is more than two hours away that goes to that university. And the ones that are on campus live in Oklahoma next door, they’re all coming to the fight, and there’s a lot of talent in Wichita. But it’s just one of those states that people just don’t go to. It’s a big deal Deontay going there. Bigger than him being in Alabama [where Wilder lives]. In Alabama, people see him around, he’s a regular guy. But in Wichita he’s a superstar and then you decorate the undercard with the local talent, and Nico Hernandez, who was a bronze medalist also, and a good variety of local stars that will help fill the arena.”

And, for Lopez Jnr, he wants all Wilder roads to lead to AJ. 

“The goal is the money fight,” he repeated. “I think he will be fine. He’s ready. He’s in the right place.”