Vasily Lomachenko (14-2, 10 KOs) is planning on defeating Masayoshi Nakatani more impressively than Teofimo Lopez when he faces him on June 26th on ESPN at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Loma disagrees with the wide scores that were handed down by the judges for his loss to Teofimo. They scored it for Teofimo by these ridiculously one-sided scores:
- 116–112
- 117–111
- 119–109
After re-watching his fight with Teofimo many times, Lomachenko has concluded that he has it as a 12 round draw.
Fighting with only one healthy arm and a torn-up right shoulder, Lomachenko rallied in the second half to dominate 5 of the last 6 rounds against an exhausted Teofimo, who looked like he was feeling the effects of the pace.
“My opinion now after watching [Lomachenko-Teofimo clash] a lot of times, my opinion it was a draw,” said Lomachenko to ESPN last Saturday.
Many boxing fans had the Lomachenko – Teofimo clash as razor-close at the end. Some agree that it should have been a draw, but mostly the fans saw it as a narrow win for Teofimo.
We know that once Lomachenko started attacking Teofimo in the second half of the contest, he was on another level and was the better fighter of the two.
Lomachenko will be fighting for the first time since his loss to the young 24-year-old Teofimo last October, and he’s out to give the boxing public a chance to see what he can do against a common opponent Nakatani.
Loma wanted a rematch with Teofimo to avenge his 12 round unanimous decision loss and recapture his WBA and WBC lightweight belts.
“It’s the best choice for me. I want to compare myself with this guy,” said Lomachenko about him using Nakatani to show how much better he is than Teofimo. “He was close with (Teofimo) in their fight. He’s a great opponent for me.”
Unfortunately, Teofimo has zero interest in fighting Lomachenko again, repeatedly saying, “What for?” he feels that he already proved that he’s a better fighter than the former three-division world champion Lomachenko and believes that a rematch would result in him winning again.
It probably won’t matter if Lomachenko does defeat the lanky 5’11” Nakatani more impressively than Teofimo; it’s not likely to result in him getting a rematch.
Teofimo’s promoter Bob Arum said last Saturday that he plans to match Teo against WBC lightweight champion Devin Haney if he gets past George Kambosos Jr on June 19th.
It would mean something for Lomachenko to defeat Nakatani more impressively than Teofimo did, but it probably won’t matter.
Arum has already said that Teofimo will fight two more times at 135 before moving up to 140 to take on undisputed light welterweight champion Josh Taylor potentially.
Teofimo is already pushing himself hard to meltdown to 135 to stay in that weight class. But once he moves up to 140, he likely will never return to the 135-lb division.
Lomachenko should be looking to pick off Shakur Stevenson, Oscar Valdez, and Jamel Herring because those are fights with a more realistic chance of happening.