Filipinos, Mexicans, Ukrainians fire up featherweight division

Over the last few days, a number of Ukrainian boxers in two different weight divisions made news in the boxing community under varying circumstances.

In the undercard of last week’s Timothy Bradley Jr.-Juan Manuel Marquez bout at the Thomas & Mack Center at Las Vegas was the clash between a Ukrainian gold medalist in the 2008 Beijing  and 2012 London Olympics (plus one European and two world amateur  championships) by the name of Vasyl Lomachenko, a 25-year-old featherweight from Odessa. It was Lomachenko’s debut as a professional fighter.

An Olympic gold medalist turning professional in Las Vegas is, ordinarily, no earth shaking news. In the Ukrainian’s case however, several curious facts emerged making Lomachenko worth keeping an eye on especially if you belong to the camps of Nonito Donaire Jr., Guillermo Rigondeaux and other featherweights.

To begin with, Lomachenko was fighting a 10-rounder in his first professional fight. Normally, even outstanding Olympians who turn professional like Muhammad Ali and George Foreman are contracted to fight for four- or six-rounds before going up to eight, 10 and finally, 12 rounds for title fights. We even wondered why the Nevada Boxing Commission allowed Lomachenko to fight over 10 rounds in his professional debut.

But the fact that Lomachenko was scheduled to fight Mexican veteran  (25-3, 15 KOs) Jose Luis Ramirez, also 25, for the latter’s World Boxing Organization (WBO) international featherweight title merely served to further wet one’s curiosity before the fight. One wondered: was Lomachenko being prematurely fed to the lions by the enterprising Bob Arum who can really hype things up like no one’s business?

One undisputable fact however is that Lomachenko was regarded as the top pound-for-pound amateur boxer over the last several years. He had compiled an amazing record of 396-1, and he atoned for that single blemish by beating the same opponent twice.  

We were therefore surprised when Lomachenko decked Ramirez, who has never been stopped in his career, in the first round with a vicious punch to the liver sending the Mexican down on his knees. In the fourth round, the Ukrainian ended the fight with a similar punch to Ramirez’s midsection.

Top Rank is now talking of a regular world title fight (without the “international” or some other prefix qualifying the title), pitting Lomachenko against Orlando Salido who stopped Orlando Cruz in the main undercard of the Bradley-Marquez bout. Cruz, from Puerto Rico, made news by openly declaring that he is gay, the first professional boxer to come out of the closet in such a public, yet dignified way. Reports indicate that Lomachenko and Salido will slug it out for the latter’s WBO featherweight title on January 25, 2014. If Lomachenko prevails, he would have established a record by being the first fighter to win a world title in his second outing.

Salido’s record of 40-12, 28 KOs is unjustly deceptive. He has seen action against highly regarded fighters, among them Panama’s Juanma Lopez. Salido started boxing at the rather early age of 15 in 1996 and lost eight of 12 fights before he turned 21, according to “The Pugilist”. The guy has been around for the last 15 years and at 32 still has enough gas in the tank to engage Lomachenko in a war of attrition.

Asked about Lomachenko, Salido, according to “The Pugilist” stated, “Lomachenko is a good fighter. He moves well but he’s nothing special. What can I say about him? He is a winner. I am ready for anyone and it’s going to be a war in very fight.”

Lomachenko, on the other hand is already setting his sights on Rigondeaux , another two-time Olympic medalist and conqueror of Donaire. He has left out Donaire and Mikey Garcia out of the picture momentarily, ignoring the fact that Garcia knocked Salido three times en route to winning the WBO featherweight crown. Donaire, for his part, will be in a rematch with Vic Darchinyan on Nov. 9. It’s obviously one way for Donaire to get back into the featherweight sweepstakes by taking on the brash Darchinyan and stopping him probably no later than the sixth round.

The other Ukrainians in the news are heavyweight brothers Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko. In a bout deep with political undertones, Wladimir outpointed Athens Olympics superheavyweight champion Alexander Povetkin of Russia.

The Russian came into the fight with an immaculate 26-0 record but was no match for Wladimir in a bout that had both Ukrainians and Russians glued to their TV sets not so much for the love of the boxing sport but because of the political dynamics between Ukraine and Russia.

Ukraine won its independence from Russia in the early ‘90’s and triggered the break up of the USSR.  The “animosity” between the two nations was noted rather casually by one of the boxing commentators during the Lomachenko-Ramirez fight. The commentator earlier said Lomachenko was Russian but later corrected himself and stated that “Lomachenko is Ukrainian and not Russian, and they don’t like each other”.