A critical look at the past week in boxing
BIGGEST WINNER
Vasiliy Lomachenko
I don’t know whether Lomachenko can beat 135-pound rivals Shakur Stevenson and Gervonta Davis, two rising young stars. Stevenson mirrors the Ukrainian in terms of pure skill but he’s younger by a decade. And Davis is a more-complete fighter, with both technical ability and one-punch knockout power.
I won’t put anything past Lomachenko, however. He’s still brilliant at 36.
That was obvious on Saturday night in Perth, Australia, where he staged a clinic that embarrassed former champion George Kambosos Jr.. Lomachenko easily outboxed the Aussie for 10-plus rounds, wore him down and finally knocked him out in the 11th to become a world titleholder for the first time in three-plus years.
CompuBox statistics are never definitive but they reflected what happened in the ring on Saturday. Two numbers stand out. Kambosos landed 10.8% of his punches (40 of 371), evidence of Lomachenko’s remarkable defensive ability. And the winner connected on 50% of his power shots (105 of 21), an indication of his precision punching.
And while he isn’t known for his power, his punches were heavy enough to break down and bloody Kambosos after the loser went down from a left to the body.
We should be measured in our praise because of Kambosos’ limitations. He’s a tough, fiery fighter but his skill set is lacking. We saw that in back-to-back-decision losses to Devin Haney. And we saw it again against Lomachenko.
That being said Kambosos, who once defeated the man who toppled Lomachenko — Teofimo Lopez — to become unified 135-pound, was highly ranked. And Lomachenko made him look like an amateur.
Lomachenko admitted going into the fight that he’s beginning to feel his age, particularly in terms of the recovery process. For that reason I hope a faces either Stevenson of Davis in his next fight, when he’ll have a realistic chance of winning.
He certainly deserves it. The two-time Olympic champion has packed a lot into his 21-fight professional career, demonstrating a sublime skill set – perhaps most notably his footwork – against top competition beginning in his first few fights.
Let’s enjoy him while we still can.
RABBIT PUNCHES
The ring announcer declares the wrong winner in Perth then corrects it 😳 pic.twitter.com/ze9Wxt6JaU
— Top Rank Boxing (@trboxing) May 12, 2024
Kambosos (21-3, 10 KOs) apparently is a one-hit wonder. The 30-year-old from Sydney stunned the boxing world by upsetting a less-than-healthy Lopez by a split decision in 2021 but has struggled since, losing the two fights to Haney, eking out a victory over journeyman Maxi Hughes and then falling well short against Lomachenko. His plight demonstrates that grit can take a fighter only so far. … Everyone makes mistakes but ring announcer Dan Hennessey made a doozie in Perth, initially getting the result wrong after the Cherneka Johnson-Nina Hughes 118-pound title fight. Hennessey first announced that Hughes had won a decision to retain her title only to realize he got it wrong. He then called the fighters back to the center of the ring and declared that Johnson was the winner and the new champion, leaving Hughes feeling cheated and onlookers shaking their heads. The guy had one job to do and he failed miserably. ESPN analyst Tim Bradley spoke for everyone watching when he said, “Get this dude up out of here.”
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