Lomachenko fought Teofimo with injured shoulder, had surgery on Monday

By Michael Collins - 10/20/2020 - Comments

Vasiliy Lomachenko fought Teofimo Lopez with an injured right-shoulder last Saturday night, and he had surgery on Monday in Los Angeles to have the problem repaired. Lomachenko will be able to resume training in late January.

That rules out a quick rematch with Teofimo, who could be facing either Devin Haney or Ryan Garcia next.

Yahoo Sports News reports that Dr. Neal S. ElAttrache operated on former WBA/WBC/WBO lightweight champion Lomachenko (14-2, 10 KOs), and he successfully repaired the issue.

Lomachenko, having fought Teofimo with an injured shoulder, effectively minimizes the significance of his victory.

Last Saturday, it was widely believed that Teofimo had done something special in beating the highly talented Lomachenko by a 12 round unanimous decision. That victory is now less important than it previously was. Teofimo beat Loma, but it was a close call.

Except for the 12th, Lomachenko took over the fight in the second half of the bout and had Teofimo looking worried, confused, and exhausted. Lomachenko looked like the younger fighter in the last half of the match.

Lomachenko fought Teofimo with injured shoulder, had surgery on Monday

While many boxing fans on social media are taking verbal shots at Lomachenko, 32, saying that he’s using the shoulder injury as an excuse for his loss to Lopez. Still, Dr. ElAttrache has confirmed that he was injured.

First treated Lomachenko six weeks ago during training camp. Loma went still through with the fight, but he had pain in his right shoulder when he would throw punches.

Lomachenko suffered the injured shoulder while in camp training for his October 17th fight against IBF lightweight champion Teofimo (16-0, 12 KOs) in ‘The Bubble’ at the MGM Grand Las Vegas.

The shoulder surgery took place last Monday night in Los Angeles. Loma’s surgery was on the same shoulder on which he had surgery in 2018 before his fight against Jorge Linares.

For some reason, Lomachenko didn’t disclose the injury to his promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank, who would obviously have liked to have known about it. If Arum was told about the injury, he could have postponed the match until Lomachenko had surgery and rehabbed his arm.

Lomachenko fought Teofimo with injured shoulder, had surgery on Monday

Dr. ElAttrache says that Lomachenko should be able to come back from the surgery.

“I wouldn’t expect he’d have any limitation after this one for what we were able to do. Not all repeat surgeries have a worse prognosis,” said ElAttrache to Yahoo Sports.

“He had what we call a hemorrhagic thickened bursitis. That’s the tissue that lubricates and cushions the rotator cuff, which is where we had treated him.”

Many boxing fans are stomping mad in hearing about Lomachenko’s shoulder injury and his subsequent surgery. The fans want to know why Lomachenko didn’t disclose the problem ahead of time or canceled or postponed the fight?

The people that bet on the Lomachenko vs. Teofimo fight obviously would have liked to have known about his right shoulder injury ahead of time. Not knowing about a serious shoulder injury has got to be upsetting.

Lomachenko fought Teofimo with injured shoulder, had surgery on Monday

Teofimo will need to make up his mind about whether to give Lomachenko a rematch or not. If Teofimo chooses not to, he’s shooting himself in the foot because the fight would make a lot of money.

Given that Teofimo has beaten Lomachenko once, boxing fans would like to see if he could do it a second time. It would be against a healthy Lomachenko. That be a great selling point to get fans to buy into seeing a second fight between them. Otherwise, it would be hard to get people interested in seeing them battle again.

“On the inside of the shoulder where he had previously dislocated the shoulder, he had chipped the cartilage on the inside of the socket,” said Dr. ElAttrache.

“That was right next to the [previous] repair so I did a small touch-up of the repair so I could cover up the bare cartilage in the front of the shoulder.”