Vasily Lomachenko wasn’t impressed with the popular Golden Boy fighter Ryan Garcia after sparring with him in the past. He’s predicting that Luke Campbell will defeat him this Saturday night on January 2nd at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas.
Lomachenko says during their sparring sessions, Ryan Garcia didn’t want to get hit in the face, and he ran from him.
It’s unclear whether Lomachenko felt that Ryan’s fear of getting hit in the face was because he didn’t want his pretty-boy looks to be spoiled or if he was worried about being knocked out.
Either way, Lomachenko says he ran from him, and then posted on social media that they had gone to war. Lomachenko says there was no war, and he has a video of the sparring session.
Ryan battles Campbell for interim WBC title
Garcia (20-0, 17 KOs) and Campbell (20-3, 16 KOs) are meeting in a crucial fight in the main event on DAZN.
The interim WBC lightweight title will be on the line, but more importantly, the fight will show whether the 22-year-old ‘King’ Ryan Garcia has what it takes to become the new star in boxing.
Ryan’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya, said this week that he believes he will be the biggest star in boxing. If that prediction is right, Ryan should have little problems defeating #3 WBC Campbell to win the vacant interim WBC 135lb title.
As far as the Garcia – Campbell fight on Saturday, Lomachenko believes Luke will win, as long as he’s fully recovered from his recent bout with COVID 19.
Lomachenko has some concerns about whether Campbell’s lungs are 100% after being sick with the corona, as that virus attacks the lungs.
Loma questions whether Campbell’s stamina will be there for him on Saturday. If Luke fades in the fight, Ryan’s chances of landing his signature left hook punch, which is the only weapon he has, will increase.
“I have sparred him,” Lomachenko said to Snowequeenla about Ryan Garcia. “He goes around and tells lies. After the sparring session, he posted on his Twitter that we went to war.
“What he said had nothing to do with reality.
“What actually happened was, he kept retreating to the trenches and was terrified to show his face,” said Lomachenko about Ryan being fearful of mixing it with him.
Lomachenko says Ryan Garcia hasn’t improved
“No, no, no, of course, not,” said Lomachenko after being asked if he’s seen Ryan Garcia having improved since he sparred with him.
If Ryan hasn’t improved since Lomachenko sparred with him, Campbell is going to have a field day on Saturday night, and take the young YouTube star to school.
Ryan has a tremendous following of over 7 million fans on social media, but unfortunately, he hasn’t done anything in boxing for him to have that kind of a following.
Golden Boy Promotions has been careful in the type of opponents they’ve matched King Ryan with, and he’s had little more than 20 showcase-level fights since turning pro in 2016.
There’s nothing wrong with Ryan being matched against lesser opposition, as he’s very young still and that’s how prospects are brought along typically in the first six to eight years of their careers.
What could be a major red flag is how poor Garcia looked when Golden Boy stepped him up against the always tough Carlos Morales in 2018.
Morales put Gennadiy Golovkin-like pressure on Ryan Garcia the entire fight and chased him around the ring.
After Ryan failed to knock out Morales with his signature left hook early on, he appeared to mentally crumble and spent the second half of the right running and holding.
Morales teed off on Ryan from the fifth round on, and it was obvious that he was the better fighter of the two at the end.
As one would expect, Ryan was given a controversial 10 round majority decision, but it was clear that he had lost and was given a gift by the judges.
What’s interesting is Golden Boy chose not to put Ryan back in with Morales, which is something they should have done given the controversy over the results.
Rather than doing that, Golden Boy backed Ryan off from fighting decent opposition, and they’ve matched him with four consecutive soft opponents and he’s looked good in scoring early knockouts.
However, by matching Ryan against tomato cans, his flaws are still there waiting to be exposed by Luke Campbell on Saturday.
Lomachenko picks Campbell to win
“I think Campbell is going to win,” said Lomachenko in selecting the 2012 Olympic gold medalist Luke to beat Ryan.
Lomachenko knows how tough Campbell can be, as he went to war with him in 2019, winning a hard-fought 12 round decision. Campbell stunned Lomachenko a couple of times during the fight, and he made it tough on the talented Ukrainian all throughout the fight.
In watching how Campbell stayed in there, took shots, and returned fire for 12 rounds, it’s difficult to imagine Ryan Garcia being able to do the same thing. Campbell is a lot more advanced fighter than Ryan, who doesn’t react well to being pressured by his opponents.
Unless Ryan has changed his stripes since his fight with Carlos Morales, he’s likely to flee when Campbell puts pressure on him this Saturday.
What we don’t know is if Campbell can pressure Ryan enough to make him fall apart mentally as we saw in his fight with Morales. Campbell likes to box from the outside, and that style might not give Ryan as many problems as he had against Lomachenko and Morales.
Lomachenko doubts Ryan Garcia will land left hook
“His speed, his signature punch is his left hook. I doubt he’ll be able to land his left hook on Luke because that guy knows what he’s doing in the ring,” said Loma.
If Campbell takes away Ryan’s left hook from him on Saturday, he’ll be lost because that’s the only weapon he has. Ryan’s right hand is average at best and not a threat to beat a fighter of Campbell’s caliber.
Ryan’s jab is weak, and he doesn’t use it very much because he’s always looking to land his left hook.
It sounds like Lomachenko had no problems avoiding Ryan’s left hook during their sparring session, which is why he was on the run going to the “trenches” to avoid getting hit in the face by the two-time Olympic gold medalist.