By Chris Williams: WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (7-1, 5 KOs) will be facing WBA World champion Jason Sosa (20-1-4, 15 KOs) in a unification fight on April 8 on HBO at the MGM National Harbor, in Oxon Hill, Maryland.
Dan Rafael is reporting the news. It’s a good fight for the 28-year-old Lomachenko, because Sosa is a tough fighter that has been active recently. He’s not all beaten up like Roman Martinez was going into his fight against Lomachenko last June, and he’s not coming off of a long 11-month layoff like Lomachenko’s last opponent Nicholas Walters was when they fought each other last December.
Sosa, 28, has been fighting on a regular basis and looking quite good for a busy fighter.
This is not the fight that Top Rank promoter Bob Arum was interested in a while back. Arum wanted to match Lomachenko against Orlando Salido in a rematch of their fight in 2014.
Lomachenko lost that fight by a 12 round split decision, and he’s never had a chance to avenge the loss. Salido chose not to take the rematch with Loimachenko for whatever reason. If they could have, Top Rank likely would have jumped at the chance of matching Lomachenko against former WBC super featherweight champion Francisco Vargas before he was beaten by Miguel Berchelt. Now it’s too late with Vargas having been recently knocked out by Berchelt.
Sosa is coming off of an impressive 12 round unanimous decision win over Stephen Smith last November. Sosa dominated a very good fighter in Smith, as he never let him get into the fight. Before that, Sosa defeated former WBA champion Javier Fortuna by an 11th round knockout last June. It was a good performance by Sosa.
Lomachenko vs. Sosa could be a good fight if there’s action involved. That means that Lomachenko would need to move less and fight more. He makes it boring sometimes by electing to box rather than fight. Lomacnenko did a lot of moving in his fights against Gary Russell Jr. and Nicholas Walters. Those fights were very boring to watch.
Against the worn out looking Roman Martinez, Lomachenko stayed in the pocket and knocked him out in five rounds last year. However, Lomachenko had an advantage in that Martinez had been involved in back to back grueling fights against Orlando Salido coming into their fight. Martinez took a lot of punishment in those fights, and it’s no wonder he was stopped so easily by Lomachehnko.
If Lomachenko stands his ground against Sosa and fights, it’ll be a good match for the boxing fans. If Lomachenko chooses to move around the ring for the entire fight, then it could be a really boring fight to watch for the fans. My guess is Lomachenko will elect to move for 12 rounds and just play it safe in order to keep from getting hit by Sosa. He hits too hard for Lomachenko to stand in front of him.
“Lomachenko’s April 8 defense on HBO likely will be vs. Jason Sosa at the new MGM National Harbor in Oxen Hill, Md. (DC area). #boxing,” said Rafael on his Twitter.
Sosa is going to give Lomachenko all he can handle in this fight.