Poor HBO. Saturday night at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, Jim Lampley and Max Kellerman started the night off by spending many minutes trying to justify the controversial decision in the Andre SOG Ward over Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev fight. The explanation went this way. Max explained that after reviewing the tapes, he came up with the same score as the judges. They scored it 114-113 for Ward. Max said he had it in favor of Kovalev, but he quickly whitewashed his own opinion by saying, I understand why the judges voted for Ward! Hence, there really wasn’t an explanation, only an excuse. The fact is HBO’s hopes for a classic match-up ended up looking more like an MMA bout with Ward trying to garner points for a “take down”.
Nicholas Walters
Lomachenko Stakes His Claim for Fighter of the Year with Walters Stoppage
He came, He saw, He annihilated. Two-time Ukrainian Olympic gold medalist and two-division world champion VASYL LOMACHENKO (7-1, 5 KOs), successfully defended his World Boxing Organization (WBO) junior lightweight title by stopping undefeated former World Boxing Association (WBA) featherweight champion NICHOLAS “Axe Man” WALTERS (26-1-1, 21 KOs), of Montego Bay, Jamaica, on Saturday at The Chelsea inside The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Walters told referee Tony Weeks he did not want to continue after the seventh round. The fight was televised live on HBO World Championship Boxing®.
Video: Vasyl Lomachenko vs Nicholas Walters – Post Fight Recap
Vasyl Lomachenko (7-1, 5 KOs) successfully defended his WBO junior lightweight championship belt when he dominated Nicholas Walters (26-1-1, 21 KOs) en route to a 7th round stoppage victory. Many boxing observers expected this to be a competitive contest between two elite boxers from this weight range. What transpired, however, was something completely different. Lomachenko made things look easy in there. Between the 7th and 8th rounds, Walters had informed referee Tony Weeks that he did not wish to continue. This ending left many fans disappointed, but the end result is that Lomachenko dominated and he looked sensational doing so.