By Dan Ambrose: The undercasrd of the June 21st fight between Vasyl Lomachenko vs. Gary Russell Jr. will have two fights that could wind up being far better fights than that one in welterweight Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero (31-2-1, 18 KO’s) fighting slugger Yoshihiro Kamegai (24-1-1, 21 KO’s) and former two division world champion Devon Alexander (25-2, 14 KO’s) fighting Jesus Soto Karass (28-9-3, 18 KO’s) in a 50/50 fight on Showtime at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.
Guerrero has done nothing since his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. last year in May. Golden Boy Promotions were interested in matching Guerrero up with Keith Thurman, but he chose not to take that fight. They had other options for him in addition to Thurman, but Guerrero opted not to take any of those fights. He wanted a rematch against Mayweather, but Mayweather wasn’t interested in fighting him again due to their fight not being a competitive one. Their fight didn’t bring in huge pay-per-view numbers either.
In choosing the little known Kamegai, #7 IBF, #14 WBC, Guerrero is taking a big chance with his career. If he loses to this guy then it’s going to be tough for him to turn things around again, because it gets much better than Kamegai when Guerrero starts climbing the ladder to face guys like Thurman and Shawn Porter, or even Amir Khan. The welterweight division has improved a lot with those three fighters hitting their primes.
Devon Alexander lost his last fight to Porter by a 12 round unanimous decision last December. Porter roughed Alexander up against the ropes in the same way he did with Paulie Malignaggi, and ended up winning an easy decision. Soto Karass was stopped in the 9th round in his last fight by Keith Thurman last December.
The Lomachenko-Russell Jr. fight could be a boring fight if Lomachenko chooses to clinch as much as he did in his recent loss to Orlando Salido. Lomachenko appeared to have never fought a body puncher before during his amateur or his short pro career, so his reaction was to instinctively clinch in order to survive. Lomachenko deserved to lose the fight, but you can make an argument that he didn’t deserve to fight for a world title in his next fight, not with a 1-1 record.
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