By Dan Ambrose: WBO super World super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (6-1, 4 KOs) will be making a dangerous title defense next month on November 26 against former WBA featherweight champion Nicholas “Axe Man” Walters (26-0-1, 21 KOs) at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas in Nevada. Former two division world champion Mikey Garcia is picking “Hi-Tech” Lomachenko to win the fight. The Lomachenko vs. Walters fight will be shown on HBO World Championship Boxing starting at 10:35 p.m. ET/PT.
Garcia doesn’t say why he thinks the 28-year-old two-time Olympic gold medalist will be winning, but it could be due to Lomachenko’s recent success in defeating Roman “Rocky” Martinez by a 5th round knockout last June, and his 12 round majority decision win over Gary Russell Jr. from June 2014. Those are easily Lomachenko’s two best wins of his seven-fight pro career.
Mikey said this to Fighthype.com about his thoughts on the Lomachenko vs. Walters fight:
“Lomachenko has a tough fight in front of him,” said Mikey. “I think Lomachenko takes it, but Walters is a tough and dangerous fighter.”
Walters, 30, has a very real chance of winning on November 26 despite what Mikey says. Walters is the biggest puncher by far that Lomachenko has ever faced before, and he’s not depleted the way Roman Martinez was. Martinez had been through two recent grueling 12 round fights against Orlando Salido before he fought Lomachenko.
It wasn’t a good idea for Martinez to take a third tough fight after his two grueling affairs with Salido. Speaking of Salido, Lomacheko lost to him by a 12 round split decision in 2014. Lomachenko’s boxing supporters tried to explain away his loss to Salido by saying that he was bigger than him. Salido weighed in three pounds heavier than Lomachenko. It wasn’t much of a weight advantage.
When you get fans making excuses about their fighters losing because of opponents that are just three pounds heavier, it suggests there’s some denial going on. The fact of the matter is Lomachenko couldn’t handle the body shots from Salido, so he chose to clinch all night long. The referee failed to take points off from Lomachenko for his holding in that fight, and he should have.
Walters needs to take a page out of the Salido-Lomachenko play book by electing to go after Lomachenko’s body with power shots. It might be a problem though because Lomachenko likes to move around the ring more than he did at the start of his career. Lomachenko is not one of those exciting Gennady “GGG” Golovkin type of fighters who goes after his opponents with power shots.
Lomachenko is more of a boxer puncher who likes to stay out of the way of shots.
Walters will need to use his incredible eight inch reach advantage to get the better of Lomachenko on the outside, because he’s going to be moving around all the time. Lomachenko knows better than to try and stand and slug with Walters. He doesn’t have that kind of power going for him.
Walters is coming off of a 10 round draw against Jason Sosa last December. It was a close fight that would have been won by Walters if it had two more rounds. Walters gave up the first five rounds trying to slug with Sosa, and that kept him from winning.
It would be huge news if Walters wins this fight, because Lomachenko is being groomed as one of Top Rank’s future huge stars. The fact that they were willing to put Lomachenko in with Walters suggests that they believe in him.