Vasiliy Lomachenko and George Kambosos Jr. will meet for the vacant IBF 135-pound title Saturday night (U.S. time) in Australia on ESPN and ESPN+.
VASILIY LOMACHENKO (17-3, 11 KOs)
VS. GEORGE KAMBOSOS JR. (21-2, 10 KOs)
- Date: Saturday, May 11 (in U.S.)
- Time: 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT (main event later in show)
- Where: RAC Arena, Perth, Australia
- TV/Stream: ESPN, ESPN+
- Division: Lightweight (135 pounds)
- At stake: Vacant IBF title
- Boxing Junkie Pound-for-pound: Lomachenko No. 13
- Odds: Lomachenko 5½-1 favorite (average of multiple outlets)
- Significance (up to five stars): *****
- Also on the card: Nina Hughes vs. Cherneka Johnson, bantamweights (for Hughes’ WBA title); Andrew Moloney vs. Pedro Guevara, junior bantamweights; Imam Khataev vs. Ricards Bolotniks, light heavyweights; Joe Goodall vs. Djanago Opelu, heavyweights
- Background: Lomachenko, the 36-year-old boxing wizard from Ukraine, hasn’t held a major world title since he lost his 135-pound belts to Teofimo Lopez in 2020 yet is still considered one of the best boxers in the world. He bounced back from the loss by stopping Masayoshi Nakatani in June 2021 and then defeating Richard Commey by a one-sided decision that December. He has fought sporadically since Russia invaded his country in February 2022, entering the ring only twice. He easily outpointed Jamaine Ortiz in October of that year. Then the former three-division champion got his chance to regain past glory in a meeting with then-undisputed 135-pound champ Devin Haney in May of last year. Lomachenko gave a typically strong performance against his highly rated opponent but lost a disputed decision, 116-112, 115-113 and 115-113. He will get another crack at a belt against Kambosos in Australia. Kambosos shocked the boxing world by defeating Lopez to win a split decision and three 135-pound belts in 2021. It was downhill after that, as he lost back-to-back one-sided decisions to Haney. He rebounded to beat Maxi Hughes by a majority decision but he wasn’t convincing last July.
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