By Chris Williams: Mikey Garcia saw weakness in Vasyl Lomachenko last Saturday night in his fight with Jorge Linares, and he’s now convinced that he’ll knock him out when they face each other. Lomachenko (11-1, 9 KOs) came into his fight with WBA lightweight champion Linares (44-4, 27 KOs) with an aura of invincibility, but he looked very human throughout the fight, getting knocked down hard in the 6th, and taking countless hard head blows that bruised his face up.
In the end, Lomachenko still got the victory after he landed a left to the body that sent Linares down for the count in the 10th. But with all the hard shots that Lomachenko was forced to eat in the fight, his days are clearly numbered at lightweight. Garcia could expose him if the Ukrainian fighter’s promoter Arum lets him take that fight. Right now, it doesn’t look like Arum wants to make the Lomachenko-Garcia fight.
Arum is talking about wanting to match Lomachenko against one of his own fighters in Ray Beltran on August 25. Beltran is technically a world champion in holding down the WBO lightweight strap, but he’s complete unknown with the casual boxing fans. They have no idea who Beltran is. Even the hardcore boxing fans rarely mention Beltran’s name. That’s who Arum wants to match Lomachenko against next.
“I can stop him. He looks sensational with less quality opponents,” Mikey said to ES News Reporting. ”When he stepped up against Linares it wasn’t easy. He got dropped. He’s not invincible. He’s not this ‘out of this world’ phenomenon people make him out to be.”
All the hype behind Lomachenko ends the moment he loses to Mikey Garcia. Lomachenko will have a hard time bringing his career back if Garcia knocks him out, which is why I see Arum dragging his feet when it comes to making this fight. If the Lomachenko-Garcia contest does place, I see it happening in the distant future when one of both of them is over-the-hill, and no longer the top guys.
There’s a very good chance that Mikey does knockout Lomachenko, who was 14 pounds lighter than Linares last Saturday. Lomachenko is too small for the lightweight division. Lomachenko is not big enough for the lightweight division, and he certainly isn’t big enough to move to 140 to take on the top dogs in that weigh class, like Regis Prograis, Kiryl Relikh, Jose Ramirez and Sergey Lipinets.
Lomachenko hasn’t said anything about wanting to fight any of those guys though, and his promoter Bob Arum hasn’t said anything about wanting to match him against 140 pound fighters. If Lomachenko ever does fight a light welterweight, Jose Ramirez would be the likely guy that Arum would match him against. Ramirez is with Top Rank, so it would be an in house fight between him and Lomachenko. Ramirez isn’t considered to be the best fighter at 140. Prograis is viewed as the top guy, and he’s having problems getting a fight against Ramirez.
Arum wants to match Lomachenko against the soon to be 40-year-old Manny Pacquiao. That fight could happen later this year if Pacquiao wins his July 15 fight against WBA World welterweight champion Lucas Matthysse, and if Lomachenko is willing to take the fight. It’s a very dangerous fight for Lomanchnko, because Pacquiao is so much bigger and stronger than him. Pacquiao has a step with age, but he’s still more than strong enough to hurt Lomachenko with every shot he throws. It’s likely that Lomachenko will make his decision whether he wants to face Pacquiao after seeing how he does against Matthysse. If Pacquiao looks good in winning that fight, then Lomachenko will probably turn down the fight with him. If Pacquiao struggles to win, then I see Lomachenko taking the fight.