By Dean Berman: Unified lightweight champion Vasily Lomachenko is predicting that former cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk will beat WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder, and “school him” when the time comes. Usyk (17-0, 13 KOs) has a ways to go before he shares the ring with the unbeaten Wilder (41-0-1, 40 KOs).
Usyk is mandatory for the WBO belt, which is held by Andy Ruiz Jr. He’s got to wait to who wins the December 7 rematch between Anthony Joshua and Wilder in Saudi Arabia. From there, the WBO will need to order the fight.
With the high number of right hands that Usyk’s last opponent Chazz Witherspoon bounced off his chin earlier this month on October 12, Wilder very likely would knock him out within one or two rounds. Usyk is too easy to hit at heavyweight, and his power is substandard for the division. He punches the way you’d expect a former cruiserweight to punch. There’s weight classes for a reason.
Lomachenko says Usyk SCHOOLS Deontay Wilder
“He will school Deontay Wilder,” said Lomachenko to esnewsreporting about Usyk.
The problem with Lomachenko’s prediction is that means very little considering that Usyk is friend, comes from the same country of Ukraine, and shares the same trainer. It would be nice to know what Lomachenko would feel if Usyk wasn’t his friend, and was from some other country.
Usyk is like a smaller, weaker version of Tyson Fury. He’ll spoil for a while against Wilder, but once he gets hit, it’ll likely be all over.
Wilder is fighting a rematch with Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz (31-1, 26 KOs) on November 23 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. If Wilder wins that fight, then he’s supposed to be facing a rematch with lineal heavyweight champion Tyson Fury next February. Fury has a match against WWE wrestler Braun Strowman at the Crown Jewel event on October 31 in Saudi Arabia. He needs to get through that match in one piece to face Wilder in early 2020.
Usyk, 32, has it pretty easy. He’s going to be chilling out waiting for the Joshua-Ruiz 2 rematch to take place to find out which of the to he’ll face next.
Usyk has already had his warm-up fight against Chazz Witherspoon on October 12 in Las Vegas, Nevada. He doesn’t intend on fighting anyone else until he gets his title shot against Joshua or Ruiz.
Richard Commey beats Teofimo Lopez predicts Lomachenko
“I wait for Commey-Lopez,” said Lomachenko. “I think Commey. Too much power and big reach. As we saw in the last fight of Lopez, he can’t fight with a big reach.”
IBF lightweight champion Richard Commey (29-2, 26 KOs) is a rugged guy with the experience advantage over Teofimo Lopez (14-0, 11 KOs). Lomachenko will be fighting the winner of the Commey vs. Lopez fight in the undisputed lightweight championship fight in early 2020.
Commey, 32, has been with Raymundo Beltran, Robert Easter Jr. and Denis Shafikov. The knock on Commey is he can be out-toughed at times when facing guys that are willing to go to war with him for 12 rounds. Lopez, 22, has the youth and power to win this fight, but he’ll have to perform better than he did in his last fight against Masayoshi Nakatani last July.
Teofimo looked lost against Nakatani in winning a fight that was a lot closer than the scores handed down by the judges. If Lopez is able to take the power of Commey, he might win based on his punching power and freshness. It won’t matter in the big scheme of things. Lomachenko is looking unbeatable right now. The winner of the Commey vs. Lopez fight is really just naming Loma’s next victim.
Canelo making a big move in facing Kovalev
“Big move for Canelo, and big money for Kovalev,” said Lomachenko when asked about his thoughts on November 2 fight between Saul Canelo Alvarez and WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev.
It looks like Lomachenko is sitting on the fence, not giving his thoughts on the Canelo Alvarez vs Kovalev fight, because a lot of boxing fans are picking the Mexican star to win this fight. Kovalev’s trainer Buddy McGirt gives him a good shot at winning. This will be Kovalev’s third fight with McGirt, and he’s thus far 2-0 with him as his coach. Sometimes when fighters have no coaches that they believe in, they turn their careers around. If that’s the case with Kovalev, Canelo is going to be in for a lot of pain on November 2.
A rejuvenated Kovalev would be a lot of problems for a fighter only 5’8″. That’s small for a light heavyweight. The last time Kovalev fought a fighter that short was in 2012 when he stopped 5’7 1/2″ Darnell Boone in the 2nd round. In their previous fight in 2010, Kovalev beat Boone by a controversial 8 round split decision. A lot of boxing fans thought Kovalev was given a gift in that fight.
Lomachenko says Joshua vs. Ruiz Jr. = 50-50 match-up
“50-50,” said Lomachenko about the Anthony Joshua vs. Andy Ruiz Jr. rematch.
This is another fight where there surely is a guy that has to be seen as the favorite, and in that case a lot of fans are looking Ruiz Jr. (33-1, 22 KOs). He’s showing improved speed in his training for the rematch with Joshua on December 7, and he’s dropped a little bit of weight.
Joshua (22-1, 21 KOs) doesn’t have a lot of things he can do to make things difficult for Ruiz. It’s thought that Joshua will run from Ruiz, and try and box from the outside. That’s probably not going to work because the California native is fast on his feet when pressing forward.
