Listen Now:
By: Sean Crose
“After first loss in the professional (ranks),” Vasyl Lomachenko said to the media this week on the eve of his undisputed lightweight title fight with Devin Haney. “I’m thinking everything can happen in the ring.” The truth is that the man, who was once hailed as someone who perhaps could become the best boxer ever, now has two loses on his resume, to Orlando Salido and Teofimo Lopez respectively. Still, Lomachenko doesn’t seem to much care about the L’s on his record.
“Look,” he said, “in my mind I didn’t lose any fight in professional boxing. That’s why I sleep very well.” Although some may find his assertion that he didn’t lose to Lopez a bit much, he may have a stronger argument when it comes to his loss to Salido (in only his second pro bout). “If you understand boxing,” he said in his broken English, “you saw a situation about Salido…during the fight, how many low blows was. I think I didn’t lose on the point.”
Fair enough, but does Lomachenko really feel he should have gotten the judges’ nod after his fight with the hard hitting Lopez? “I said before, the same situation with Lopez,” Lomachenko stated. “I didn’t feel I lost this fight.” While his fight against the larger, taller and extremely talented Haney hasn’t even gone down yet, Lomachenko was asked about rematching Lopez. “I can’t (make it ) to 140,” he joked. “After that, you ask me about Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk.”
Lomachenko was then asked about the possibility of going to down to 126 in order to face “The Monster” himself, Naoya Inoue. “I forget how to make weight,” Lomachenko cracked before admitting “it’s always interesting fighting with top fighters close to our weight class.” He then went on to praise the Japanese multititlist. “He has the power and he’s a top fighter,” said Ukraine’s Lomachenko. “He’s a world champion. It’s always interesting to watch the fighters who watch, who respect, and who love boxing.”
As for Haney, Lomachenko will face the impressive American on May 20th as the main event of a Top Rank Pay Per View card. Should Lomachenko pull off the win, he may well find talk of him potentially being an all time great making the rounds again. Haney is no easy task, however. To the contrary, a Lomachenko loss at this point in his career might be less surprising than a Lomachenko win.
