Vasyl Lomachenko vs. Simpiwe Vetyeka possible for Mayweather-Pacquiao undercard on 5/2

By Boxing News - 02/23/2015 - Comments

lomachenko566789By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is looking to stage a fight between WBO featherweight Vasyl Lomachenko (3-1, 1 KOs) and former WBA Super World featherweight champion Simpiwe Vetyeka (27-3, 16 KOs) on May 2nd on the Floyd Mayweather Jr vs. Manny Pacquiao card on the Showtime – HBO joint broadcast pay-per-view fight card from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Presumably, the Lomachenko-Vetyeka fight will be the third fight on the pay-per-view portion of the card. In other words, it’ll be the opening fight on the PPV broadcast.

Mayweather Promotions, which is the lead promoters for the card, will likely be the one that sets up the co-feature bout with one or more of the fighters from their stable of fighters.

What’s interesting here is that Arum isn’t looking to put Lomachenko in a meaningful fight against Guillermo Rigondeaux or WBA featherweight champion Nicholas Walters in order to give the millions of boxing fans that will see the fight card a good fight.

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It’s too bad, because Lomachenko needs a real test, not a retread fighter who was recently beaten by Top Rank stable fighter Nonito Donaire. The 34-year-old Vetyeka lost his WBA title last year in May in a controversial 5th round technical decision to Donaire in a fight.

This is a fight where Donaire suffered a cut over his left eye in the 1st round. He struggled in the fight until scoring a flash knockdown of Vetyka in the 4th. After that round, Donaire suddenly said he couldn’t see out of his cut eye, which had been cut since the 1st.

Some boxing fans felt that Donaire took the easy way out of the fight, which was proving to be a difficult one for him. Whether Donaire would have won the fight had it gone the entire distance is unknown? What is known is that Donaire was struggling badly.

“Top Rank is angling Vasyl Lomachenko to fight is not [Nicholas] Walters or [Guillermo] Rigondeaux, but former featherweight champ Simpiwe Vetyeka,” LA Times writer Lance Pugmire said on his twitter.

In trying to understand why Arum isn’t making the Lomachenko-Walters or Lomachenko-Rigondeaux fights, it could be that he’s hoping to let those fights marinate the same way he let the Juan Manuel Lopez vs. Yuriorkis Gamboa fight marinate years ago.

In the case of Rigondeaux, I don’t see Arum ever letting the Cuban fighter face Lomachenko, because there’s too much of a chance that Rigondeaux will beat Lomachenko and expose him in the same way that Orlando Salido did in his win over him.



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