Najee Lopez and Manuel Gallegos Deliver Fight of the Year Contender

It’s only March and we already have the fight of the year. The Najee Lopez (16–0, 13 KOs) vs Manuel Gallegos (22–4-1, 19 KOs) fight was an instant classic and another ProBox banger.

The first round was a classic feeling-out round, with Najee Lopez firing his jab at Gallegos. However, when Lopez was cut in the second round, the boxing match turned into an absolute war with both fighters showing a willingness to punch and trade leather.

With some back-and-forth rounds, the momentum appeared to be with Lopez. Gallegos pressed the body attack and looked much improved from his recent outings. With his performance, Najee Lopez looks to be a future world title contender.

Then, in the seventh round, Lopez was dropped by a short right hand as he looked to finish off Gallegos. Najee finally found his man in the eighth with the stoppage when Gallegos dropped to his knees from exhaustion.

Gallegos was also cut in the fight, with both men spraying blood onto the announcer team from ProBox.

Algieri calls it the "Fight of the Year"

The ProBox team, including Paulie Malignaggi and Chris Algieri, were pumped to be witnesses for the epic fight.

Both men realized this was a fight of the year contender, with Algieri commenting that if 2026 sees a better fight than boxing is having a great year. The only knock against this match was that it was on YouTube and ProBox and did not involve a major world title; only the WBO Latino Light Heavy was on the line in this one.

Malignaggi, who has a bare-knuckle BKB fight coming up, said he would go train immediately after the fight, even though by then it would probably be around midnight his time. Paulie has a fight on May 16 in Manchester for the BKB world welterweight title against Rolando Dy Venue.

Both of these men will certainly be in other fights, and any fight fan will want to see them in more, but it’s hard to think of either being in a bigger career fight, no matter what happens.

The matchmakers at ProBox sure know what they’re doing, giving fans a stacked card that was topped by this excellent fight between two light heavyweight contenders with so much on the line.

A truly great fight can make you forget entirely that you’re a fan of the sport when you witness a match such as this in the ring.