By Eric Baldwin: WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (7-1, 5 KOs) retained his title with a 7th round TKO victory over previously unbeaten former WBA World featherweight champion Nicholas “Axe Man” Walters (26-1-1, 21 KOs) on Saturday night on HBO Championship Boxing from the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The 30-year-old Walters surprisingly quit after the 7th round had ended. It’s unclear why Walters quit on his stool other than the fact that he was getting a boxing lesson by the 2-time Olympic gold medalist Lomachenko. The fight was close in the first three rounds, but Lomachenko turned up his foot and hand-speed starting in the 4th, and the fight quickly got out of hand with Walters taking punishment.
It was surprising to see Walters pull a ‘no mas’ like that, because he’s always been a real tough fighter in the ring. He’d never shown any indication of someone that would quit, which is why you have to wonder whether Walters was injured or something.
Walters landed occasional power shots to the head and body in the first three rounds. However, he wasn’t pulling the trigger on his shots enough for him to win rounds. Walters did the best in the 3rd round, as he landed hard right hands to the head of Lomachenko.
It was still a very close round. But in the 4th round, Lomachenko increased the speed of his movement and hands, and he started to dominate Walters. The speed was way too much for Walters to handle. Walters was still trying to throw one punch at a time, and this was no match for the speedy combinations that Lomachenko was throwing.
Walters should have studied the fight tape of Orlando Salido in his win over Lomachenko in 2014. Salido attacked Lomachenko to the body and it threw the Ukrainian fighter off, because he could elude those shots no matter how hard he tried. It looked like Walters didn’t want to take the punches that he had to in order to land to the body of Lomachenko. He didn’t trust his chin.
For Lomachenko, this was a good win to show that he’s one of the best if not the best fighter in the super featherweight division. Lomachenko needed an important victory to show the boxing world that he rates a fight against WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao. However, the way that Lomachenko was elusive in the ring might not make him an appealing option for Pacquiao. He doesn’t like to chase his opponents around the ring, and against Lomachenko, he probably would be forced to chase him, because he’s real quick on his feet.
I don’t know if Lomachenko has faster hand speed than Pacquiao right now, but he might. The movement that Lomachenko uses could make it frustrating for Pacquiao. I don’t know if it would be a good match-up for the soon to be 38-year-old Filipino fighter. It might not be a good fight for Pacquiao, because Lomachenko is a mover. The guys that do better against Lomachenko’s style of fighting are welterweights Errol Spence. He doesn’t mind fighting movers.
It’s doubtful that Top Rank promoter Bob Arum would let Spence anywhere near his prize Lomachenko. He might get hurt by Spence. The only one from the welterweight division that has a chance of fighting Lomachenko is Pacquiao, and that’s because he’s with Top Rank. If Lomachenko can beat Pacquiao it might make him more popular. But then again, if he can’t beat him, then that’s bad news for Lomachenkoa and Arum. Pacquiao isn’t going to be around too much longer, and Arum needs someone that can take the baton from him.
Lomachenko might have a chance if he can take Pacquiao’s scalp and if he can at least campaign as a light welterweight. It’s unrealistic to assume that Pacquiao can become a pay-per-view attraction fighting at super featherweight or lightweight. Those guys are too small. Lomachenko will need to beat Pacquiao and then campaign at 140 or 147 at lest to have a chance of becoming a PPV attraction.
“One year without fighting,” said Walters after the fight in explaining why he failed to perform well. “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.”
Lomachenko would also need to beat Terence Crawford. I don’t know if Arum would be willing to put Crawford in with Lomachenko if he’s already beaten Pacquiao. I think not. Pacquiao will be retiring in the near future, so he can be sacrificed in a fight against Lomachenko. I don’t think Arum will let Crawford suffer the same fat. I see Arum keeping Lomachenko and Crawford in different lanes so he can have two revenue streams. Putting them together will potentially hurt one of his revenue streams, and those guys are going to be fighting for a long time to come unlike Pacquiao, who is about done with his boxing career.
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In other boxing action on tonight’s Top Rank card, unbeaten welterweight contender Konstantin Ponomarev (31-0, 13 KOs) remained undefeated with an eight round unanimous decision win over journeyman Silverio Ortiz (35-19, 17 KOs). The final judges’ scores were 80-72, 80-72, and 80-72. The 24-year-old Russian Ponomarev threw a lot of shots in beating the 33-year-old Ortiz with his right work rate in a one-sided fight.
Ponomarev hurt Ortiz in round six with a left hook to the head. He backed the Mexican fighter up against the ropes in the last seconds of the round and was hitting him at will with shots. That was the best round for Ponomarev.
Ortiz appeared tired out in the 7th and 8th rounds, and only rarely was able to land something in return. Ortiz was still able to catch Ponomarev with an occasional shot to the head. What was troubling is that Ortiz showed more punching power in the right than Ponomarev did. That’s not good, because Top Rank is hoping to make things happen with Ponomarev at 147. But with his lack of punching power, he’s going to have some issues trying to do anything in this weight class.
Ponomarev’s punching power was really lacking in the right, as he looked weak with his shots. That’s not good news for Ponomarev, because he’s ranked #5 IBF, #7 WBO, and for him to do anything in the welterweight division, he’s going to need to be able to compete with the likes of Pacquiao, Errol Spence Jr., Keith Thurman and Danny Garcia. Based off tonight’s performance, I’d say that Ponomarev lacks the punching power to compete with those guys.
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Undefeated light heavyweight Trevor McCumby (24-0, 19 KOs) destroyed the hard hitting Donovan “Da Bomb” George (25-7-2, 22 KOs) in a surprising 1st round knockout victory. McCumby dropped George two times in round one. The fight was then halted by the referee Robert Byrd. The official time of the stoppage was at 1:48 of the round. It’s shocking how far George dropped off from four years ago when he was fighting the likes of Adonis Stevenson and Edwin Rodriguez. George was a better fighter back then. Tonight’s defeat for George was his third straight loss since last year. It’s unclear where George goes from here. McCumby looks pretty good. His hand speed isn’t that great though. It’s hard to picture McCumby landing the shots he was hitting George with against better fighters in the 175lb division like Andre Ward, Sergey Kovalev, Oleksandr Gvozdyk, Artur Beterbiev and Adonis Stevenson. Those fighters all appear to be a level above the likes of McCumby. We’ll find out in the near future how good McCumby is when he’s stepped up a notch against live bodies.
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Undefeated welterweight Juan Ruiz (18-0, 11 Kos) stayed unbeaten with a 1st round knockout win over Fernando Carcamo (21-8, 16 KOs). Ruiz sent Carcamo down twice in the 1st round. The fight was then halted at 2:43 of the round.
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Undefeated light welterweight Maxim Dadashev (5-0, 5 Kos) kept his perfect ring record intact with a 2nd round knockout victory over Efrain Cruz (4-3-1, 1 KOs). The fight was halted by referee Kenny Bayless at 1:57 of the 2nd round.