By Steve Kim

Highly regarded lightweight, Teofimo Lopez (10-0, 8 KO's) and his father, recently paid an in-studio visit to 'the 3 Knockdown Rule' with Mario Lopez and they weren't shy in stating their opinions.

Lopez, who scored an impressive sixth round stoppage of William Silva on July 14th in New Orleans, is considered one of the best young prospects in the sport of boxing. They were asked what they felt about some of the other young boxers in and around their weight class, such as junior lightweight, Ryan Garcia (15-0, 13 KO's).

"Terrible," was the blunt reply of Teofimo's father, who then added - "Listen to me, the kid fights retarded, man. C'mon man, please, can you not see that? I know my IQ in boxing is really high but nobody can really be that dumb. I don't want to talk about this kid because we're just giving him clout. We're thinking about fighting world champions. This kid is about maybe 30 fights away for a world title. He's got a lot of work to do.

"One thing for sure, 100-percent, they're never going to put him with my son."

As for Devin Haney (19-0, 13 KO's), who is a lightweight, the out-spoken father did concede - "Devin is a sharp kid."

But then he added, "He's just too boring, people want to see action, he comes, he throws a couple combo's and backs up and backs up the whole fight."

Lopez and Haney have sparred in the past.

"It was a goose chase," recalled Lopez, who just turned 21 recently. "Devin was talking more than he was working."

"Devin's father said,"the only way I'd let my son fight your son is for millions,''said the older Lopez.

As for junior welterweight, Vergil Ortiz (10-0, 10 KO's), who is promoted by Golden Boy - "I don't know anything about the kid, I've never seen him fight. So I can't mention nothing about him. Surely he's not anything we should worry about because nobody is talking about him,"said the father, who trains Teofimo.

Then Karlos Balderas (6-0, 5 KO's), a 2016 U.S. Olympian was brought up.

"OK,''said the elder Lopez,"right now Karlos Balderas is off the map. Somebody, I believe it was Richard Schaefer, because I heard Richard Schaefer talking bad about us, it's on tape. I think Richard Schaefer said, 'Listen man, you've got to start calling these people out because if you don't you're going to go into disappearance because nobody knows who the hell you are.'

"Now he's trying to get clout off us."

He noted - '''this last guy he fought was like 27 and 23 or something like that."

Balderas was back on July 28th at the Staples Center stopped Giovanni Caro in four rounds. Caro had a record of 27-23-4 coming into that contest.

"So you have like the audacity to come out here and call me out when you haven't done anything," said Lopez, who is nursing an injury to his right hand that will keep him out of action till December.

Yeah, it's clear that the Lopez's believe that they have far surpassed any other prospect in boxing and will soon be fighting for a world title.

"There hasn't been one prospect fighting a guy who's 25-1(like Silva), as of right now," stated the father.

Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.