By Barry Holbrook: Teofimo Lopez (15-0, 12 KOs) predicts an early stoppage of WBA/WBC/WBO lightweight champion Vasily Lomachenko (14-1, 10 KOs) tonight in their grudge match in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Teofimo says Lomachenko’s talent is just an “illusion,” and he wants to expose him in front of the world in their unification for the undisputed lightweight championship.
Lopez = a big underdog
The oddsmakers don’t agree with IBF lightweight champion Lopez, as they have the 32-year-old Lomachenko as a solid favorite to win. If Teofimo does win the fight, he can gloat and lecture the bettors that picked him to lose.
Tonight’s Lomachenko vs. Lopez contest is a fight between two fighters with entirely different styles of fighting.
While the smaller, weaker fighter Loma likes to throw light shots speedily, the bigger guy Lopez hammers his opponents with heavy shots.
Most of Lopez’s opponents know better than to exchange with him, but the ones that are brave enough to try to end up getting knocked out. The longest Teofimo has gone in a fight is 12 rounds against Masayoshi Nakatani a year ago, and that was a one-sided match.
Nakatani was in the survival mode and looking to land jabs and weak punches. He went the distance, but he lost a lopsided 12 round decision to Lopez.
Teofimo predicting stoppage within six rounds
“Hell no, I love it. I love it when I’m the underdog,” said Teofimo to ESPN. “I’m the underground king, and I haven’t been crowned.
“Yeah, of course,” Lopez said when asked if Lomachenko has misjudged him. “You hear it. He’s always saying, who am I. Who is this young cat?”
“‘I’ve been in the game for a long time, this and that, and you don’t have the IQ that I do, and I’m a God,’ whatever it is and I’m probably some peasant to him,” said Teofimo about how Lomachenko thinks of himself and him.
“It’s not about what he does do best; it’s about what he doesn’t do best,” Lopez said of Vasily. “He doesn’t know how to fight backwards. It’s all an illusion with Lomachenko. People don’t realize that.
“Everything that everybody always talks about his footwork and all that stuff: it’s nice, don’t get me wrong. Do what you got to do. It’s part of it. He’s trying too hard. You guys already fall for the illusion.
“I’m ready for everything,” Teofimo said about his preparation for Lomachenko. “I’m ready for the technical part, I’m ready for the footwork part, and I’m ready for the war part.
“This fight isn’t going the distance. I don’t see it passing six. It ain’t going to end pretty, that’s what I say, for him,” said Teofimo.
“A lot of people are talking about Teofimo. What Teofimo?” said Lomachenko.
For Lopez to be predicting a stoppage within six-round, that suggests that he’s going to be looking to unload his bombs right out of the gate. We saw Teofimo do that against Mason Menard and Richard Commey.
Lomachenko has sparred with middleweights
“I think the fight is going to go his way,” said Sergiy Derevyanchenko to Fighthub in picking Lomachenko to win tonight. “I’ve trained with him, and I’ve seen him do things that were just spectacular. So I’m with him.
“I don’t think it’s going to be an easy fight for Vasily. I’ve trained with Vasily, and I’ve seen what he can do physically. Back then, he sparred with middleweights, so I don’t think it’s going to affect him,” said Derevyanchenko.
“It’s a great fight, and it’s just too close,” said Porter to Fighthype on the Lomachenko vs. Teofimo fight. “I’m going to go with logic, and I’m going to go with what makes sense and with what my eyes can see, and that’s Lomachenko winning this fight.
“I don’t think it’s going to be a knockout. It’s going to be some great punches landed by both guys. I think Lopez will be very much in the fight, even in a loss. It’s a one-round, two-round separation in a close fight. I got Lopez keeping up the whole way, and I got Lomachenko winning this fight,” said Porter.
Loma will smash Lopez, says Saunders
“Loma is going to smash him,” said Billy Joe Saunders to IFL TV in predicting a win for Lomachenko. “Listen, it’s going to be a comfortable night’s work.
“Lopez is going to come forward. He’s a very strong fighter, who will come forward, but that’s not going to beat him. I didn’t take nothing from it,” said Saunders on the faceoff between Lomachenko and Lopez at the weigh-in.
“Lomachenko looks cool, calm, and collective, and he’s going to get the job done.”
Lomachenko has been troubled at 135
“Vasily Lomachenko vs. Teofimo Lopez is a hell of a fight,” said ring announcer Dave Diamante to IFL TV. “A three-division world champion in Lomachenko, a stellar fighter, but there are a lot of interesting things with this fight.
“I can see many things happening with this fight, and I can see many different outcomes. You can see Lomachenko pitching a shutout and putting on a clinic.
“You can see Teofimo knocking out Lomachenko. I think there are so many things that can happen and so many different variables. At 135, Lopez is tough for Loma because he’s had trouble at 135.
“He’s won all his fights there, but Pedraza, Linares, he’s had some different trouble at 135, and Luke Campbell. It’s not that he doesn’t carry his power. He doesn’t carry that one-punch power.
“At the same time, you can look at it if Teofimo Lopez comes in on the night…Lomachenko will come in at around 137. He’s a pretty small-gramed guy. Lopez will probably come in around 147.
“Is that going to slow Lopez down? Will Lomachenko be faster? I don’t know. Teofimo obviously has the big punching power that can equalize anything. You look at different fights.
“Does Lomachenko have to have a steller fight where he doesn’t make any mistakes, or he gets knocked out? That’s possible.”
Lomachenko has struggled to win three out of the four fights at 135, and he’s coming out of them looking worse than his opponent. He got hit a lot by Jose Pedraza, Luke Campbell, and Jorge Linares. Those are fighters with only moderate power.
It could be difficult tonight if Loma gets hit a lot by Teofimo, and he may not be able to handle his power.
Will Teofimo fade early?
“We saw that in the first Wilder-Fury fight where Fury did great until the last round, and he got caught by Wilder,” Diamante continued. “Then in the second fight, we thought it was going to be kind of the same thing after Wilder fought Ortiz and Ortiz won every second of every round until Wilder chinned him.
“In the second fight, Wilder did actually punch Fury a couple of times, really nice and connected. It didn’t hurt Fury at all, and Fury walked through him. So you never know with boxing, and that’s the whole thing.
“People say, ‘Lomachenko, it’s going to be an easy fight for him.’ Well, maybe it will be, and maybe it won’t be. We don’t know. That’s the whole thing with boxing. The other thing too.
“We talk about Usyk, a fellow Ukrainian. They’re in the same camp, but those guys have a really great strong mentality. Loma, as I said, he’s been in some tough spots in fights, and he’s come through that. 396-1 as an amateur.
“He’s seen everything. I don’t think he’s too worried about Lopez, but at the same time, he’s not taking him lightly. But also, Lopez has an amateur pedigree, and Lopez is an exciting fighter.
“After four, five, or six rounds, Teofimo might be so amped up; he may tire himself out. We’ve seen that happen before. There are so many different types of things that can happen.
“Look at the fight between Danny Garcia and Amir Khan, where you thought that Amir was going to box his ears off, but that wasn’t the case. It’s hard to say always what’s going to happen in a fight. That’s what makes this fight so intriguing. It’s a great match-up. I just love it.”
The only way Teofimo will fade is if he throws a lot of shots, but he may not be able to do that if Loma is moving around.
Lopez may have woken a sleeping giant
“Lomachenko is better at the lower weights, but 135 is more glamourous,” Diamante said. “So you got to give him credit for going up and fighting these bigger guys.
“Where Teofimo is possibly a bigger guy at 135, but he campaigns there. It’s a very interesting match-up. There’s a lot of ways to look at it. I can’t wait to see the fight. I don’t think he’s rattled at all,” said Diamante about Lomachenko.
“He’s a fighter, and he’s got ice in his veins. I don’t think either of them is rattled. Both of them are fighters, and they’re chomping at the bit to get to each other. The other thing too is there’s been a lot of trash talk.
“I don’t know if it’s necessarily Lopez or his dad, but it can be a thing where you wake up a sleeping giant. I think Lomachenko is always in a fight, but now he’s really mentally in this fight.
“He wants to do damage. I think he’s upset about the trash talk, and I think it’s disrespectful. Don’t wake up a sleeping giant; that can happen.
“I don’t think either of them is scared. I think they’re going to go in there, and we’re going to see some ace performances from both guys,” said Diamante on tonight’s Lomachenko vs. Lopez clash in Las Vegas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lyxjhNCHKA
Lomachenko can’t afford to fight any harder than he normally does when he gets in there with Lopez tonight. If Loma tries to do more than usual, he could walk into something from Lopez.
When Lomachenko is at his best, he’s throwing fast combinations close to his opponents. He can’t do that tonight against a puncher like Teofimo without putting himself in a position where he’ll get hit hard.