By Dan Ambrose: With WBA featherweight champion Nicholas Walters losing his title on the scales before his last fight against Miguel Marriaga, he lost whatever chance there was to fight WBO featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (4-1, 2 KOs) in a unification match.
Lomachenko’s manager Egis Klimas says that without a title in Walters’ possession, they’re not interested in fighting him. Additionally, they’re concerned with Walters’ ability to make weight for a featherweight contest after seeing him rehydrate to 145 pounds for his featherweight contest against Marriaga.
The weight that Walters came in at was at welterweight, and he was close to being a junior middleweight. With Walters’ ability to put on huge amounts of weight after he rehydrates for his fights at featherweight, it makes him not appealing to Lomachenko and his manager.
Walters weighed in at almost exact same amount as lightweight Felix Verdejo, who has the size to fight at light welterweight.
Lomachenko, 27, could be fighting next in November in a Top Rank fight in Dubai if the card can be made. It’s still unclear who Lomachnko will be fighting. He’d like to fight a unification match against one of the other champions at featherweight, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.
Gary Russell Jr., a former victim of Lomachenko, recently won the WBC featherweight title. He’s probably not going to want to give up his title by taking a risky fight against Lomachenko. IBF champion Lee Selby just won the IBF title with a win over Evgeny Gradovich, and he’s talking about wanting to get in a couple of title defenses before he starts thinking of trying to unify titles.
“Walters is not interesting for Lomachenko, as he lost his title on scale,” Klimas told RingTV.com. “He did not make weight. We are not interested [in] preparing for the bout and not knowing if opponent going to make weight and [then] going into ring with welterweight (On the night of the Marriaga fight Walters weighed in at the welterweight limit).”
Walters needs to move up in weight to lightweight so he can fight guys his own size. That’s probably not going to happen though, because by staying at featherweight or fighting at super featherweight, Walters will have a weight advantage over his opponents and that will help him win fights. But if he moves up to lightweight, he’ll have to face guys as big as himself, and he might not be able to dominate like he’s been doing in the past. Walters may find it tough to do the same things he’s been doing if he has to fight guys that are weighing at welterweight.
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