By Chris Williams: Top Rank has reportedly signed former two-time Ukrainian Olympic gold medalist Vasyl Lomachenko to a long term contract. Lomachenko, still only 25, captured gold medals in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics in dominating his overmatched opposition.
Lomachenko will be making his pro debut on October 12th in a scheduled 10 round bout on the undercard of the Juan Manuel Marquez vs. Tim Bradley fight card at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Lomachenko’s fight will be televised by HBO.
In addition to signing Lomachenko, Top Rank also signed former 2012 Olympic heavyweight gold medalist Oleksandr Usyk, also from Ukraine. Usyk captured the gold medal beating the following heavyweights in the 2012 Olympic games: Artur Beterbiyev, Tervel Pulev and Clemente Russo.
It’s unclear what Top Rank will be doing with Usyk because he doesn’t have the size to fight at heavyweight. Unless he bulks up, he’ll be too light to compete against the bigger heavyweights in the division. He struggled in beating Russo in the Olympics, and he’s not super heavyweight.
Usyk might be a decent cruiserweight, but there’s not much interest in that division in the U.S, so Top Rank may not be accomplishing that much with this signing.
Lomachenko will be pushed forward with his career quickly instead of taking things slowly. He doesn’t really need to waste five to eight years fighting weak opposition the way that some fighters do, because he’s already the finished product at this point.
It’s interesting that they’ll be putting him in a longer bout right off the bat, but not really because Lomachenko is going to knockout anyone that’s put him with him unless they match him tough for his first fight, and I can’t see Top Rank doing that.
Top Rank president Todd duBoef told Dan Rafael of ESPN, “He [Lomachenko] is one of the most heralded amateurs to go professional in many years. He’s one of those guys some people thought might stay amateur because he’s such an icon in his country, but he wanted a professional career and wants to be on the fast track.”
It was Lomachenko who requested that his first fight be a 10 rounder instead of a 4, 6 or 8 rounder.
It’ll be interesting to see if Top Rank matches hm against the likes of Mikey Garcia in the future. If Mikey moves up in weight, which he really should, then the fight won’t happen. Mikey seems to have outgrown the featherweight division.
Comments are closed.