Lomachenko Loses to Lopez. Dream of Absolute Championship Shattered

The Ukrainian boxer sensationally lost and gave up all of his belts.

Personal relationships between fighters always add an extra spark to a boxing confrontation. At the very least, this makes life easier for marketers, who gain another angle to promote the bout. Audiences like it when fighters are driven forward not only by the thirst for sporting achievement but also by a burning desire to hurt their opponent and take revenge for something done or said. The bout between Vasiliy Lomachenko and Teofimo Lopez had exactly such a situation, and the rivals had plenty of reasons to hurt each other.

It all started two years ago near an elevator in a Manhattan hotel, when the father of promising young lightweight Teofimo Lopez, Teofimo Lopez Sr., hurled insults at Vasiliy Lomachenko, allegedly because the latter showed him disrespect by not returning a greeting. This trivial, much-ado-about-nothing story was skillfully blown up to incredible proportions, and a bout between one of the best boxers of our time and an unbeaten prospect began to be seriously discussed long before such a fight became a reality.

While the American of Honduran descent racked up flashy wins over not the most top-tier opponents, Vasiliy kept to a tactic of ignoring the talkative kid from Brooklyn. But after Teofimo Lopez destroyed IBF world champion in lightweight Richard Commey in less than five minutes, he caught the Ukrainian's attention.

“Welcome to my club”, — Lopez commented then on his victory in the title bout against Loma.

The IBF belt is the only world title belt missing from Vasiliy's collection. Formally, the WBC title was not at stake in this bout; the sanctioning body's bureaucrats had awarded it to the American Devin Haney, giving “Hi-Tech” the status of “franchise” champion. So, with some caveats, a win would have let Vasiliy Lomachenko tick off one of his main career goals: absolute championship. But it didn't work out, so all the debates over whether the “franchise” WBC title gave the right to be called an absolute champion no longer matter.

Lomachenko was asleep for most of the fight

On the eve of the bout, Teofimo Lopez had not held many advantages over the Akkerman native. Fimo significantly outsized the favorite in size and physical power. But since Vasiliy was no stranger to facing bigger men, the IBF champion's one-off cannon punch caused far more concern.

It is hard to say what caused Lomachenko's utter passivity in the first half of the fight. He has long accustomed everyone that after two or three rounds of cautious scouting he starts gradually pressing the accelerator and imposing a crazy pace on opponents, which they cannot withstand. Here, though, everything was different. Vasiliy simply did nothing.

Teofimo Lopez was not a model of aggressive boxing either, and no solid clean shots were landed by him during this period. However, simply throwing punches, a constant jab and occasional flurries with body punches were more than enough to look preferable to the Ukrainian, who during this time showed only footwork.

If the Ukrainian's team had a plan to wear the opponent down and wait for the moment when his strength would begin to leave him, it was doomed to fail from the start, since Teo set the pattern of the fight and worked at a comfortable tempo.

Vasiliy only got going in the eighth round, when he rocked the opponent during one of his combinations. Despite the increased activity, Lomachenko had no overwhelming advantage. He had to win rounds on character, since Lopez tried to immediately counter every successful punch from Vasiliy.

By the championship rounds it became clear that for victory Vasiliy needed a knockout or at least several knockdowns. Apparently the boxer understood this perfectly well, since in the 11th round he went on the attack. The American was rocked a bit, but during a one-minute break he managed to recover and did not let “Hi-Tech” win the closing stages.

As it turned out, though, the final round no longer affected the situation. Crazy 119-109 and 117-111 scorecards, plus more reasonable and closer to reality 116-112, all in favor of Teofimo Lopez.

Possible futures for Vasiliy Lomachenko

What Teofimo Lopez will do after his grand victory is perfectly clear: bask in the glow of fame and tell every microphone that he foresaw it all, and that there is no point doubting him next time. His growing body is already cramped at lightweight, and probably next year he will be conquering 140 pounds.

As for Vasiliy Lomachenko's future, the situation is more complicated. First of all, it would be good to hear the version of the Ukrainian's team about what happened and his personal view of the future. “Hi-Tech” spent seven years working toward the bout for the absolute champion title, and he has neither the desire nor the time to start over, collecting titles bit by bit. Moreover, rumors suggest that the 32-year-old boxer has begun to experience motivation problems and that boxing has considerably bored him over a quarter century. If so, it is not worth ruling out ending his career at a fairly young age by boxing standards.

In theory, the simplest way to win back ground would be a rematch with Teofimo Lopez. The fight was closer than the judges counted, and from a sporting point of view there is a point to it. True, right now it seems a rematch would be interesting only to Loma, and if a second bout is organized, despite the contract having no rematch clause, there will almost certainly be fewer belts at stake than tonight.

It was expected that after winning all the titles at lightweight, Vasiliy would move down to the more comfortable super featherweight division (up to 59 kg), where he could show his best boxing against opponents of comparable size. There, Arum has Mexican champion Miguel Berchelt, a fight with whom could be arranged with a single phone call.  We should also not forget the option of constantly traveling between weight classes in search of the most interesting and lucrative fights for a comfortable old age, but that option would have been ideal in the case of today's victory.

As we can see, Lomachenko has plenty of options, and how could it be otherwise when we are talking about one of the leaders in the rating of the best boxers regardless of weight class? On this question, everything will depend on his desire and firm decision.