Lomachenko destroys Martinez; Verdejo wins

By Jeff Sorby - 06/12/2016 - Comments

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Vasyl Lomachenko (6-1, 4 KOs) used his superior boxing skills to defeat WBO super featherweight champion Roman “Rocky” Martinez (29-3-3, 17 KOs) by a 5th round knockout tonight in a one-sided fight at Madison Square Garden in New York. Lomachenlo made it look easy in hitting Martinez and rarely getting hit back in this one-sided contest.

In the 5th round, Lomachenko connected with a right hook to the head of Martinez that knocked him flat on the canvas. There was no way he was going to get up from that knockdown. The fight was then stopped by the referee at 1:09 of the round.

Lomachenko was boxing and moving in every round, and making it impossible for Martinez to land his shots. It was slightly interesting to watch but not enthralling stuff. It was like watching a slow, smaller version of Floyd Mayeather Jr. in the ring. Since If you are fond of Mayweather and don’t mind seeing a smaller and MUCH slower version of him, then Lomachenko was interesting to watch for you. After seeing an exciting fight last week between Orlando Salido and Francisco Vargas, tonight’s bout between Martinez and Lomachenko was not nearly as interesting to watch.

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum needs to try to convince Lomachenko to make his fights a little more crowd-pleasing because he moves too much and it’s not exciting stuff. I thought Martinez was the far more interesting fighter of the two, even though he lost. If I had a choice between watching Lomachenko and Martinez fight in the future on HBO, I’d personally prefer to see Martinez fight.

Other boxing results on the card:

Undefeated lightweight contender Felix Verdejo (22-0, 15 KOs) kept his unbeaten record in beating Juan Jose Martinez (25-3, 17 KOs) by a 5th round knockout. Verdejo hurt Martinez in the fifth round and then finished him off with a flurry of shots. The fight was immediately stopped by referee Michael Ortega. The fight was halted at 2:40 of the round. Verdejo spent most of the fight circling around the ring, hitting Martinez with straight shots to the head when he would plod forward. Verdejo looked much bigger than Martinez, and of course, he was faster and more powerful.

The fight was disappointing to watch because clearly, Verdejo is capable of facing far better opposition than Martinez. It’s unclear why Top Rank chose to back him off from quality opponents to put him in with a small fighter from the super featherweight division rather than someone from the lightweight division with talent. It could be that they didn’t like the way Verdejo had performed against William Silva recently. I’m not sure if Verdejo will be helped by facing over-matched opponents like Martinez.

This wasn’t much of a fight. Vertego was dominating the action from the start to finish. He had a huge size advantage over Martinez, who is a super featherweight. Don’t ask why Vertego was fighting a super featherweight. It was another confidence booster for Verdejo like the other fights he’s had.