By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten WBO lightweight champion Terry Flanagan (30-0, 12 KOs) is interested in defending his WBO 135lb against newly crowned WBO super featherweight champion when/if he chooses to move up in weight to the lightweight division. Heck, I wouldn’t mind seeing Flanagan and Lomachenko fight each other. It would be a great fight if they could do it right now, not years from now.
Flanagan would have a four inch height advantage over the 5’5” Lomachenko, as well as a long reach and likely weight advantage. Even if Lomachenko put on a lot of weight, he would still be dwarfed by Flanagan in that fight. However, that doesn’t mean Flanagan would win. I think he would get easily out-boxed by Lomahenko.
I think Flanagan could handle Lomachenko’s punching power, given his size advantage. If Flanagan’s management can make the Lomachenko fight now, it would be great. But if they need to wait until years from now, then it’s not going to be worth it, because I see Flanagan as having a very, very short shelf life at the time.
There’s going to be a time in the future where he probably won’t be able to make weight for the lightweight division. I mean, you’re not going to have Lomachenko moving up to welterweight or junior middleweight just so that he can fight Flanagan and school him for 12 rounds. That’s not going to happen.
Unfortunately, we probably won’t be seeing that move from Lomachenko for years. He has many top super featherweights that he still needs to beat for him to clean out the division. By the time Lomachenko does move up to the lightweight division, Flanagan will likely have long been beaten and no longer the WBO lightweight champion. Further, the 5’9 ½” Flanagan is HUGE for the lightweight division, and I can’t see him being able to melt down to this weight class forever.
Flanagan probably would be fighting at light welterweight rather than at lightweight, because he’s well into the 140s when he does fight after rehydrating. He looks like a normal welterweight in fighting against guys much lighter and smaller looking. I guess that’s why Flanagan fights at lightweight. If he had to fight at light welterweight or welterweight, he wouldn’t have nearly the same advantage in size.
“I’d love the fight with (Vasyl) Lomachenko if he steps up in weight and goes for a world title in a third weight-class. I wouldn’t be scared,” said Flanagan to skysports.com. “He looks class, a real good fighter, but I want to fight the very best in the world and, if anybody can beat him, I think it will be me. We’ve both got a similar style and we’d have a good fight, I’m sure.”
Flanagan will be defending his WBO title next against 42-year-old Mzonke Fana (38-9, 16 KOs) next month on July 9 on the undercard of the Tyson Fury vs. Wladimir Klitschko card at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. Don’t ask me why Flanagan is fighting the #12 WBO Fana rather than a younger, faster, stronger and more talented contender. Flanagan has taken a lot of heat from boxing fans for taking an older fighter like Fana for his next fight rather than someone a little more relevant.
I do think that if the goal is to make Flanagan a more popular fighter, he’s going about it the wrong way by fighting an older guy like Fana rather than some of the top guys like Yuriorkis Gamboa, Felix Verdejo, Miguel Vazquez, Hank Lundy, Raymundo Beltran, Denis Shafikov, Petr Petrov, Mickey Bey, Jose Felix Jr., Richard Commey, Robert Easter Jr., and Sharif Bogere. The way to make Flanagan more popular is to have him fighting nothing but those guys in between his mandatory defenses.
I would never match Flanagan against someone like Fana, because it wouldn’t accomplish the goal of making him a more popular fighter. Of course, I’m not sure that Flanagan could beat all the guys that I mentioned above. I think he might beat some of them, but definitely not all of them.
In addition to wanting to fight Lomachenko, Flanagan also wants to fight a unification fight against WBA lightweight champion Anthony Crolla. His interest hasn’t been returned, however. Crolla is facing WBC lightweight ‘Champion in Recess’ Jorge Linares on September 24 in a fight that is billed as a unification fight at the Manchester Arena. It’s doubtful that Crolla will win that fight, but even if he does, I still don’t see him fighting Flanagan anytime soon. Can the fight happen one of these days? Maybe it might, but I see it happening only after Crolla is down in his luck with his career tanking and him badly in need of a fight.
Flanagan will be a clear option by that point, and I can see that scenario taking place fairly quickly because I don’t think Crolla has very much time left at the top. As soon as he faces Linares, he’ll get beaten, and then from there, I see Crolla suffering additional losses if his promoter Eddie Hearn puts him in with talents like Richard Commey, Robert Easter Jr. and Dejan Zlaticanin.
“If we both keep winning, it might happen down the line but I’m not confident it will,” said Flanagan about a fight against Anthony Crolla. “I think he knows my style will give him problems and I don’t think his team believes he can beat me. It’s a shame because Anthony’s a great fighter and has looked really good his last three fights. He has looked big, strong, fit and has boxed well.”
Flanagan talks about “if we both keep winning,” but I don’t see him and Crolla being able to do that unless they’re kept away from the really good fighters in the division. Obviously, Hearn believes that Crolla can beat Linares, because he wouldn’t have made the fight if he didn’t think him capable of beating him. I think it’s going to go badly for Crolla. There areb’t going to be any easy marks for Crolla to be matched against after he loses to Linares.