Lomachenko-Walters punch stats

By Boxing News - 11/27/2016 - Comments

lomachenko85

By Jim Dower: WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (7-1, 5 KOs) outclassed former featherweight world champion Nicholas Walters (26-1-1, 21 KOs) in out-landing him two to one in punches in winning by a 7th round technical knockout at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Walters gave it his best shot, but he took too many punches in the 7th and was hurt. Walters realized he was hurt at the end of the round. He wisely chose not to come out for the 8th. The boxing fans at the small Cosmopolitan Arena weren’t happy that Walters, 30, didn’t want to continue, but they weren’t the ones that were getting hit.

Walters obviously understood that he didn’t have a good enough chance to win the fight, so he bowed out after the 7th.

Lomachenko landed 114 of 437 punches for a connect percentage of 26, according to CompuBox. For his part, Walters connected on only 49 of 264 shots for a connect percentage of 19. Walters was waiting too much to let his hands go. He wasn’t throwing his shots the way he needed to. Even Lomachenko understood this. He had respect for Walters’ power, but he thought he spent too much time standing around and not enough throwing shots.

“Walters is a good fighter, he’s really strong but I think he just stood there too much, which made it really easy for me,” said Lomachenko after the fight. “It’s not about being strong or fast, you have to train (hard) and be highly functional in the ring.”

Lomachenko did a good job of letting his hands go in the 7th round when he attacked Walters and had him hurt. That was a great round for Lomachenko. It’s not surprising that Walters didn’t want to continue fighting after the 7th ended.

Walters had the power to win the fight tonight, but he wasn’t throwing punches at a high enough rate for him to have a shot at winning. Walters averaged only 37 punches thrown per round. That’s not a good number for a super featherweight. Walters was averaging the amount of punches that you’d see from a large and slow heavyweight. The big guys at heavyweight often don’t throw a lot of shots per round, but at super featherweight, you’ve got to be able to throw a lot of punches.

Lomachenko averaged 62 punches thrown per round to Walters 37. When you factor in Lomachenko’s higher work rate and connect percentage, it’s clear why he easily won the fight. Walters was just too cautious for his own good. In other words, Walters froze in the spotlight by not performing. If you look at Walter’s fight tonight and compare it to his past matches against the likes of Nonito Donaire, Vic Darchinyan and Jason Sosa, he fought much different tonight.

Walters was attacking those guys constantly and throwing punches. Tonight, he wasn’t throwing shots at nearly a high enough rate. Granted, Lomachenko was using movement to limit the amount of shots that Walters could land. Even when Lomachenko was directly in front of Walters, he wasn’t throwing punches. It’s bad news when you’re not trying to throw power shots against guy that likes to pick his opponents apart like Lomachenko.

The blueprint was there for Walters to study in following what Orlando Salido did in his fight against Lomachenko, but Walters failed to follow it. Walters looked like he was afraid of getting hit a lot by Lomachenko in the first three rounds of the fight. There are no other explanations for why Walters wouldn’t throw enough punches at a high enough clip to win the fight. He wasn’t willing to throw shots.

Walters blamed his loss partially on his inactivity, saying that he had only fought once in the past year due to HBO not giving him a fight.

“One year without fighting,” said Walters. “You guys (HBO) only gave me one fight. He’s more active than me. In the last round, he started catching me more and more. He caught me with some good shots in the last round. I was just holding on to survive.”

By quitting in his corner, Walters made his defeat much worse than it already was. His stock is going to go down from this loss. Walters fought poorly, and then lost the fight in the worst way by quitting. That’s never good. You have to hope that Walters doesn’t do the same thing in the future when the going gets tough in his other fights. If Walters gets a reputation of quitting in his fights, it might be tough for him to keep fans on his side.

Walters had gained a good following in the past after his wins over Darchinyan and Nonito Donaire. But ever since his draw against Jason Sosa last year, he’s not looked good in fighting. Some boxing fans might argue that Walters is now over-the-hill at 30. We won’t be able to determine that until he’s matched against a good fighter like Francisco Vargas or Sosa.

Walters admitted that he quit because he was hurt after the 7th round. He didn’t see any point in going out for the 8th round with him having been hurt. Walters’s inactivity obviously was a problem. It’s unclear why Top Rank didn’t give Walters a second fight until now 11 months after his last fight. You hate to see fighters of Walters’ class fighting only once per year when he’s no longer a world champion.

If Walters is only going to be used once per year by Top Rank, then that’s a waste of his career and a waste for Top Rank. How can they not use Walters to have him fighting at least one of their top guys like WBO featherweight champion Oscar Valdez? I think the boxing public would love the idea of seeing Walters and Valdez face each other. It would be a tough fight for Valdez, because his straight ahead style of fighting is tailor-made for Walters. It’s not surprising that Top Rank didn’t match those guys though, because Valdez is a popular fighter. It might be bad if he fought Walters and was potentially knocked out.