By Mohamed Horomtallah: Anything you say can and will be used against you. This Miranda warning should be applied to boxing, a sport where what is said today is often forgotten tomorrow.
In the case at hands, we must go back in time to put things in perspective.
The year was 2013, when Lomachenko had just made his professional debut, preceded by a solid reputation built during his remarkable amateur career.
The reception he received is comparable to that of a superstar college athlete heading into the pros. His promoter and the mainstream media made his presence known. He was celebrated before he threw his first punch as a professional prize fighter, and the exposure he got only got bigger with each fight.
This was during the years where the boxing establishment fell in love with Eastern European fighters, more precisely what I like to call “the three musketeers” (Kovalev, Golovkin, and Lomachenko), and said establishment was eagerly pushing for them to take over boxing.
Through no fault of his own, Lomachenko got elevated too high, too soon. Bob Arum, his promoter, said that he’d never seen a fighter like him and that he was better than Muhammad Ali and the other all time greats. The media ran with it.
Dan Rafael boldly claimed, or should I say confirmed that Lomachenko would beat a prime Mayweather! Yes, pretty boy Mayweather who was stopping elite fighters left and right.
Although the mere fact of making such a statement about a fighter who has only had a handful of bouts at the time, including a loss to Salido, might have seemed premature, to say the least, the mainstream media, along with the usual suspects wasted no time and crowned Lomachenko as the new king of boxing, the best pound for pound boxer in the World. He was nicknamed The Matrix!
Let’s make something very clear: Lomachenko is indeed a great fighter. However, one cannot and should not compare him to an all time great boxing savant, like Mayweather, with a career spanning for almost two decades.
Far be it from me to challenge the notion that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and who am I to prevent someone from comparing apples to oranges? As a matter of fact, I’m willing to go along with such a comparison.
That being said, we have to display consistency and honesty when doing so. Lomachenko had always faced his mandatories until it was Haney’s turn. In order to protect him from what must’ve been perceived as a threat, he got elevated by the WBC to the franchise champion, the boxing version of the witness protection program and Haney got ridiculed and dismissed with the blessing of the boxing establishment.
A few years later, the tables have turned. It is now Haney who is giving Lomachenko a shot at his undisputed status, but much like a lawyer playing the insanity card to get his client off, the boxing establishment is already making built-in excuses in case Lomachenko loses to Haney.
The arguments being put forward were the fact that Haney is bigger, taller than Lomachenko, who’s no longer in his prime. In other words, the boxing establishment does not think that Lomachenko can win against Haney.
Now that’s a valid argument as long as they preface it by admitting that Lomachenko, while a great fighter, is not Mayweather material.
Need I remind them of certain facts that will put to rest any comparison between Lomachenko and Mayweather?
Mayweather was 36 years old when he faced Canelo, 23, an undefeated world champion with 43 fights and coming off a victory against Trout who had just beaten Cotto. Canelo had a 20 pounds weight advantage on fight night and, most importantly, came into the ring with the knowledge that his power could and will end the fight provided he caught Mayweather clean once or twice in twelve rounds.
He was also confident that Mayweather was definitely not a knockout threat due to his fragile hands.
Lomachenko is 35 years old (a year younger than Mayweather when he faced Canelo), and even though Haney will probably have a weight advantage, he poses no threat in the power department, unlike Canelo.
Haney’s best weapon is his skills, and that should be music to Lomachenko’s ears. After all, isn’t he The Matrix aka Nomaschenko aka the fighter who out-skills his opponent and takes away their hopes of winning?
The boxing establishment should’ve been excited and optimistic that Lomachenko will school Haney like Mayweather did Canelo.
Instead, they’re disrespecting the Ukrainian by saying that he’s too old and will enter the ring as an underdog. They even took him off the pound-for-pound list.
Mayweather at 36 was never considered old nor an underdog and he never moved from the pound for number one position let alone left the list!
The boxing establishment should make amends and retract the unfounded statements they made about Lomachenko as well as apologize to boxing historians for disrespecting so many all time greats.
They wished that Lomachenko was going to be who they said he was, but boxing is not a magic lamp that you rub and have wishes granted.
Unlike the boxing establishment who left Lomachenko out to dry, I’m not counting him out. May the best man win on May 20th, and may boxing get rid once and for all of all the hypocrisy and double standards.