Expect tears of both joy and sorrow once Rolando “Rolly” Romero and Teofimo Lopez are done fighting each other. The two have known each other since their early years as professionals, training and sparring together long before either held a world title. And one of them once helped the other through a genuinely hard stretch of life.

“I got to say thank you, dude, too. I mean, bro, you helped me out a lot. And you know how you owe me out a lot,” Romero said as per DAZN Boxing, looking at Lopez across the table.

Host Chris Mannix pressed him on what he meant, and Romero didn’t hold back.

“I remember after he beat Nakatani, I remember, you know, I was in a bad place financially,” Romero said. “I remember Teo gave me 5K out of nowhere. He just calls me randomly. He’s like, ‘How you doing?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, Teo,’ you know, he’s like, ‘How you doing?’ I’m like, out of nowhere, he just sends me 5K and bro, that money did so much for me. I can’t really say anything bad, you know?”

That moment happened at the fight’s official launch press conference on July 9 in Los Angeles, the first time the two had stood face to face to promote a bout that’s shaped by mutual respect rather than the usual pre-fight animosity. On August 22, they’ll spend twelve rounds trying to knock each other out at T-Mobile Arena, in a bout airing on Amazon Prime and DAZN pay-per-view under PBC’s promotion, with Romero defending his WBA welterweight title in his first outing since claiming it.

Romero never detailed exactly what caused that financial strain, but his early career path offers a reasonable explanation. Before boxing, he spent years training in judo. He turned to boxing around age 16, and his power caught the attention of Floyd Mayweather, who signed him to Mayweather Promotions in late 2016. He built a winning streak early on, but those untelevised prospect fights typically paid modestly, nowhere near enough to offset the real costs of chasing a world title.

Lopez, meanwhile, was already building real earning power at that stage of his own career.

Rolly Romero and Teofimo Lopez’s parallel boxing journeys

Lopez turned pro around the same time as Romero and moved quickly, collecting regional titles that positioned him for a shot at the IBF lightweight title against Richard Commey in 2019. Before that fight, he faced Japan’s then-unbeaten top contender Masayoshi Nakatani in a bout that reportedly earned him a $250,000 payout, the same win Romero referenced when describing Lopez’s unprompted $5,000 gift.

That timely help lined up with a real turning point for Romero. The following year, he followed a second-round TKO of Arturs Ahmetovs with a win over Jackson Maríñez to capture the vacant WBA interim lightweight title, and two years after that, he faced stablemate Gervonta Davis for the WBA regular lightweight title.

Boxing has a handful of stories where fighters who once tried to knock each other out went on to become lifelong friends. The best known is Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, rivals turned close friends, whose bond held even after Louis fell into serious financial trouble from tax issues and illness late in life. Schmeling, by then a successful businessman, quietly paid Louis’s medical bills, and later traveled to the U.S. to help cover the cost of Louis’s military funeral.

Romero and Lopez’s story runs in a different order. If their friendship holds after August 22, they may become the first pair to have helped each other through hardship before ever sharing a ring, rather than after.

Two years later, he found himself standing across the ring from stablemate Gervonta Davis for the WBA (Regular) lightweight title.

There are plenty of stories in boxing where fighters, after pummeling each other inside the ring, ended up forging friendships that lasted a lifetime.

There’s real weight riding on the outcome too. Whoever leaves T-Mobile Arena with the belt is reportedly on the clock to defend it again, with a mandatory title defense, possibly against Jack Catterall, expected by mid-November or risk having to vacate it. Between the personal history and that looming deadline, August 22 is shaping up to be one fight where the handshake afterward might matter almost as much as the decision itself.