By Allan Fox: After forcing his opponent Nicholas “Axe Man” Walters (26-1-1, 21 KOs) to quit after the 7th round last Saturday night, WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl “Hi-Tech” Lomachenko (7-1, 5 KOs) made it clear what his goal is for the near future by saying “My goal is to be No.1 pound-for-pound,” when interviewed by HBO Boxing after the fight.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist Lomachenko did a great job of using his mobility to attack the 30-year-old Walters to land his pin point shots. Lomachenko threw mostly 1-2 combinations in the first six rounds of the match. In the 7th, Lomachenko started to open up with sustained flurries in putting his punches together.
Walters was knocked off balance by hard shots on at least two occasions in the 7th. On one of the occasions, Walters turned his back to Lomachenko and looked to be on the verge of quitting. The look on Walter’s face when he turned around to resume fighting was the look of a defeated fighter. Walters appeared to have already given up at that point.
His body language suggested that he didn’t want anymore. Sure enough, after the round ended, Walters quit on his stool and let his trainer and the referee Tony Weeks know that he didn’t want to continue fighting. In the round before that in the 6th, Walters have briefly made a comeback by nailing Lomachenko with some hard shots.
Walters was still totally dominated in the round, but he at least showed at the time that he wasn’t going to give up the fight. However, that all changed in the 7th, when Lomachenko increased the speed of his attacks and begun throwing a lot more punches than he had in the previous six rounds. Instead of Lomachenko throwing two or three shots, he bombarded Walters with flurries that had him rattled. Walters looked totally disorganized by the end of the 7th. Walters appeared mentally out of it.
The 28-year-old Lomachenko is currently at No.7 in Ring Magazine’s pound-for-pound ratings. The good news is Lomachenko is likely to get a push up after last night’s win over Walters. Just how far Lomachenko will get moved upwards is the big question. The problem that Lomachenko has is he’s got a lot of high action fighters in front of him.
Lomachenko is a good fighter, but he’s not a human buzz-saw like #1 Roman Gonzalez and #4 Gennady Golovkin. Those guys arguably bring more entertainment to their fights than Lomachenko, because they don’t waste time trying to focus on boxing their opponent for a portion of their fights. Those guys go right after their opponents and look to take them out.
For Lomchenko to push past Gonzalez and Golovkin, he’s probably going to need to become more aggressive to make it more thrilling for the fans. I don’t know that Lomachenko rates to be moved up more than one spot in the ratings. He’s good enough to push past #6 Guillermo Rigondeaux in the Ring’s ratings, but not past #5 Terence Crawford, #4 Golovkin, #3 Sergey Kovalev or #1 Roman Gonzalez. #2 Andre Ward doesn’t quite belong in the top 5 in my estimation. I don’t think he looks as talented as Lomachenko. I don’t think it’s even close at this point. Lomachenko looks a lot better. Ward should be replaced by someone like Golovkin.
Here is the Ring’s top five pound for pound ratings:
1. Roman Gonzalez
2. Andre Ward
3. Sergey Kovalev
4. Gennady Golovkin
5. Terence Crawford
6. Guillermo Rigondeaux
7. Vasyl Lomachnko
Here are my improved ratings:
1. Roman Gonzalez
2. Gennady Golovkin
3. Terence Crawford
4. Sergey Kovalev
5. Vasyl Lomachenko
6. Guillermo Rigondeaux
7. Andre Ward
Lomachenko has room to move up if he can improve his fighting style to become more energetic and exciting. Right now, Lomachenko is still too much of boxer and not enough of a puncher for me to have him in the top 3 in the pound for pound ratings. The guys ahead of Lomachenko bring more excitement to the ring in my opinion.
There were a lot of dull periods in last night’s fight in which it was boring to watch, because both guys were treating the fight like a chess-match. That’s fine for some boxing fans, but I don’t think the majority of the fans like to see those guys of fights. They want to see pure action, and they get that from watching Roman Gonzalez, Gennady Golovkin, Sergey Kovalev and Terence Crawford. Lomachenko has the intelligence and the physical tools to change his fighting style to become an all-action type of fighter in the Golovkin mold.
Lomachenko just needs to forget about fighting in his amateur style, and focus more on fighting with pure energy. The pro game is different. Fighting in the United States is different, because the fans want to see a different way of fighting from the pitty-pat amateur style of scoring with weak punches thrown with the white portion of the gloves hitting the target. That style is archaic, and I don’t believe the U.S boxing fans want to see that kind of fighting. Golovkin and his trainer Abel Sanchez have figured out what the fans want to see, and they’ve adapted their style to please them. Golovkin didn’t use to fight the way he does now. He learned that from Sanchez, who patterned him after boxing greats like Julio Cesar Chavez. If Golovkin was able to effortlessly change his fighting style, then Lomachenko can too.
Lomachenko’s promoter Bob Arum has the chance of turning him into a star if he can match him against the right guys. Lomachenko could face Manny Pacquiao in the future. I don’t think the fight is going to happen soon. Arum will likely look to match Lomachenko against fighters in his own Top Rank stable or guys that he does business with on a routine basis.
Lomachenko has unfinished business with former two division world champion Orlando Salido, who beat him two years ago by a 12 round decision. Lomachenko would also like to fight Top Rank fighter Francisco Vargas. I suspect one of those two fighters will be Lomachenko’s next opponent. He’ll likely end up facing both of them unless Arum sticks him in with Pacquiao in 2017.