By Chris Williams: WBO featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (2-1, 1 KOs) will be making his first defense of his WBO 126 pound title against Chonlatarn Piriyapinyo (52-1, 33 KOs) on the undercard of the HBO televised pay-per-view card headlined by Manny Pacquiao vs. Chris Algieri on November 22nd at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macao, Macao S.A.R., China.
Top Rank promoter built up the Lomachenko vs. Piriyapinyo as an exciting fight that he feels will be competitive. Unfortunately, that’s probably not going to be the case. Piriyapinyo, 29, has one of the most padded records I’ve ever seen from a fighter. He’s got 52 wins, but all the victories came against very weak opposition.
In the one time that Piriyapinyo stepped it up during his 11-year career to face a decent opponent in Chris John, Piriyapinyo was soundly beaten by a 12 round unanimous decision in 2012.
This was Chris John near the end of his career where he’d lost a lot of his skills, and yet he was still able to easily beat Piriyapinyo. I don’t see this as a good fight at all. I’d rather see Lomachenko fight a rematch with Gary Russell Jr or see him fight Nonito Donaire or Guillermo Rigondeaux. Those fights would be far more entertaining than watching Lomachenko destroy a guy with an inflated record like Piriyapinyo.
Lomachenko is coming off of a 12 round majority decision win over Russell Jr from last June. It was a good fight, and a lot better than Lomachenko vs. Piriyapinyo.
Also on the card is unbeaten #6 WBA flyweight contender Zou Shiming (5-0, 1 KOs) will be facing Kwanpichit 13 Rien Express (27-0-2, 12 KOs) in an eliminator bout. The winner of the fight will face WBA/WBO flyweight champion Juan Francisco Estrada. Shiming will be out of his league when/if he faces Estrada. That guy is way too good for Shiming in my estimation.
It’s unknown right now which fight Bob Arum of Top Rank intends to put as the co-feature bout. Neither the Shiming-Express nor the Lomachenko-Piriyapinyo are big enough fights to lure boxing fans into purchasing the card. Aruim can call the fights competitive, but I don’t see that as being the case. Those two fights look to be mismatches to me, especially the Lomachenko fight.
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