By Chris Williams: Vasyl Lomachenko will be defending his WBO super featherweight title tonight in an all-Top Rank Promotions fight against the powerful Nicholas Walters on HBO Championship Boxing at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, Nevada.
With all the talking that Lomachenko’s promoter Bob Arum has been doing about him in the lead up to tonight’s fight, you would think that he’ll be able to breeze past the 30-year-old Walters without any problems whatsoever. Unfortunately, if things don’t work out well for the 28-year-old Lomachenko, then Arum could be crying big crocodile tears with his would be star exposed – again.
This won’t be the first time that Lomachenko is exposed if he loses to Walters. Orlando Salido already did a fine job of beating Lomachenko two years ago in defeating him by a 12 round unanimous decision.
Walters is going to be looking to turn the fight into a real brawl tonight, which would favor him. He’s the bigger puncher of the two, and he’s accustomed to slugging it out with his opponents. Lomachenko has only been in one war during his pro career in his loss to Salido in 2014, and he came up short.
There’s a lot on the line for tonight’s Lomachenko-Walters fight for Lomachenko. His promoter Arum is talking about wanting to put him in with his No.1 gravy train fighter Manny Pacquiao in 2017. Arum isn’t talking the same way about Walters if he comes out on top. He’s just talking Lomachenko, which makes me think it could be tough for Walters if it goes to the cards. I hope we don’t see an ugly controversial decision with Lomachenko getting a win that he didn’t deserve.
We’ve seen ugly controversial decisions before in the past. Who can forget the questionable 12 round decision Oscar De La Hoya got against Felix Sturm before his next fight against Bernard Hopkins. With a lot on the line for tonight’s Lomachenko vs. Walters fight, I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if Lomachenko wins a questionable decision to launch him into a big money fight against Pacquiao.
Lomachenko is a candidate for ‘Fighter of the Year’ right now. His other fight this year came against Roman “Rocky” Martinez, who he beat by a 5th round knockout victory last June. It was a nice win, but it was hardly impressive to me, given the awful punishment that Martinez had taken in his previous fight against Orlando Salido.
That was the fight where Salido appeared to win by a clear 12 round decision in the minds of a lot of boxing fans. Instead, the fight was scored a 12 round draw. It didn’t matter. Martinez took a real beating in that fight by Salido, and I wasn’t surprised at all that he was taken out quickly by Lomachenko in his next fight. As much punishment Martinez took in the second Salido fight, I think he would have been blasted out by anyone he was matched up against. For that reason, I can’t see Lomachenko deserving a ‘Fighter of the Year’ honor for 2016 if he beats Walters tonight, especially if the fight ends up being a controversial one. One thing that is bad about tonight’s fight is that Walters hasn’t fought in the last 11 months since his 12 round draw against Jason Sosa last December.
That’s a long layoff for any fighter, but it’s especially bad for a fighter that is facing Lomachenko. Walters should have been kept busy by Top Rank. Why didn’t they match him against other fighters during the last 11 months to get him ready for Lomachenko? I don’t understand that. Lomachenko has been busy at least with his fight against Roman Martinez. I firmly believe that if Arum had stuck Roman Martinez in the ring with Walters, we would have seen the same outcome as the Lomachenko-Martinez fight. A big puncher like Walters would have been a nightmare for Martinez. That guy is so easy to hit. If you have a hittable fighter like Roman Martinez fighting a knockout puncher like Walters, the outcome would have been an obvious one with Martinez getting obliterated in two or three rounds.
The judges for tonight’s Lomachenko vs. Walters fight will be as follows: Glenn Trowbridge, Burt Clements and Adalaide Byrd. Trowbridge and Clements worked as judges for the Sergey Kovalev vs. Andre Ward fight last Saturday night. Some boxing fans had issues with their scoring of the fight with them giving it to Ward by the scores 114-113. I personally thought they did a fine job of scoring the Kovalev-Ward fight. Byrd worked the controversial Maurice Hooker vs. Darleys Perez fight on the same card. She gave Hooker the win by the score of 97-93. A lot of boxing fans felt that Perez should have won that fight. Having those three judges working tonight’s Lomachenko vs. Walters fight will have some thinking there could be another controversial decision. I think they should do a fine job, but you never know.
Nothing surprises me anymore when it comes to scoring of fights. If the judges give Lomachenko a 12 round decision in giving him every round in a close fight, I won’t be surprised in the least. In fact, I’m expecting something strange in this fight. I hope I’m wrong.
Arum said this to the latimes.com about Lomachenko:
“He’s going to win other titles as he goes up in weight and there’s going to be very interesting guys for him to fight,” Arum said. “Vasyl Lomachenko wants challenges. He’s a tremendous talent, an unbelievable performer. His upside is enormous.”
If Lomachenko is going to win other world titles by moving up in weight, then he needs to quit wasting time at super featherweight. There’s nothing else for Lomachenko to achieve in this weight class after the Walters fight. I’d like to see Lomachenko fight Jason Sosa, Francisco Vargas and Jezreel Corrales while he’s still at 130. But if Lomachenko wants to capture other world titles at lightweight and light welterweight, then he probably doesn’t have a lot of time to spend fighting at super featherweight if he wants to accomplish the things that Arum is talking about.
Pacquiao is definitely the guy that Arum wants to match Lomachenko up against if he can get past Walters. It seems that Lomachenko has moved ahead of Arum’s unbeaten fighter Terence Crawford in the Pacquiao sweepstakes for his next fight.
“I want everyone to see how interesting boxing can be,” said Lomachenko . “Everything is going to be happening very fast. Don’t close your eyes. It will be very hard for me in the first four rounds, and then I’ll be trying to determine a spot” for a stoppage.”
Lomachenko is not a puncher at all. I hope for his knockout win over Roman Martinez didn’t put ideas into Lomachenko’s head making him think he’s a KO artist, because he’s not. If Lomachenko goes into the ring tonight against Walters looking to score a knockout, he could wind up getting knocked out himself. In fact, I see that happening.
I just wonder if Arum is going to let Walters get the same title shot against Pacquiao that he was offering to Lomachenko? Arum promotes both Lomachenko and Walters. He should give him a shot at Pacquiao too. Walters has taken out some old lions in the past like Vic Darchinyan and Nonito Donaire. Arum should at least feed Pacquiao to him so that he can get a chance to add his scalp to his growing list of pelts.