One of the better fights on the boxing schedule is upon us tomorrow night on ESPN when pound for pound king Vasyl Lomachenko moves up to challenge for a lightweight title against divisional king Jorge Linares. It doesn’t get much better than this one.
It is a well documented fact that Vasyl Lomachenko (10-1, 8 KOs) is one of the greatest amateur fighters of all time. Four gold medals spread out between two world championships and two Olympic games alongside an astonishing 396-1 record speaks to that. There was much fanfare when he turned pro on the PPV broadcast of Tim Bradley’s win over Juan Manuel Marquez by stopping veteran Mexican fringe contender Jose Ramirez in four rounds.
Professional boxing served a bit of reality check to the amateur legend when he tried to go for a world title in only his second pro fight against Orlando Salido. Notoriously poor referee Laurence Cole let the Mexican fighter get away with a number of questionable rough house tactics including many low blows down in Texas. Loma rallied late and nearly stopped Salido, but in the end Orlando walked with a narrow split decision win. Undeterred, Lomachenko again went for a world title in his third fight against Gary Russell Jr. This time he was successful.
After three straight relatively easy title defenses at featherweight, the still novice pro moved up to junior lightweight against Rocky Martinez. There he delivered a scintillating performance and a fifth round knockout of the year candidate to claim his second world title. This is really when Vasyl Lomachenko’s reign of terror began on the sport. Next fight he battered maybe the division’s top fighter in Nicholas Walters into quitting in the mid rounds. Then he did the same exact thing to veteran tough guy Jason Sosa and recent competitive Oscar Valdez challenger Miguel Marriaga.
This all set up a showdown for the ages. Fellow two time Olympic gold medalist and all time great amateur Guillermo Rigondeuax definitely had some disadvantages going into their matchup in terms of size and age, but it was still incredible to watch Loma deliver a one sided beating until Rigo pulled out citing a potentially imaginary hand injury. Yes, Rigondeaux is aging and yes he was considerably smaller, but we had seen him dramatically outclass every opponent he had faced in his pro career. Nothing had been competitive. Lomachenko kept that true, but in the opposite direction. It was really something to watch.
Of course, the Ukrainian two division titleholder going for three will not have a size advantage over Jorge Linares (44-3, 27 KOs). There was a time when the Venezuelan was anointed one of boxing’s next pound for pound stars. After he won his first belt by stopping Oscar Larios at featherweight on the undercard of Bernard Hopkins fight with Winky Wright on HBO PPV, expectations could not have been higher. Linares was not just being hyped as a good titleholder, but as a virtuoso. He was supposed to be a superstar.
Of course, we know now that this did not happen. It is difficult articulate just how a three division world titleholder who has gone unbeaten since early 2012 has somehow had a career that until recently was viewed as at least somewhat disappointing, but that is the truth. The trouble began in 2009. In his second defense of his second reign, Jorge Linares was caught cold in his adoptive Japan against Juan Carlos Salgado. Two big knockdowns in the first round were all he could stand. Just like that, the Jorge Linares hype bubble had burst.
Four fights and a little over a year and a half later, Linares got his first crack at a lightweight belt against Antonio DeMarco. For most of that night, Linares was the dominant figure that he was supposed to be. Several cuts opened up on his face, however, and by the championship rounds he was fighting severely compromised despite having dominated the fight. One huge eleventh round push from DeMarco had Linares collapsed along the ropes and finished. Then, the very next time out for the Venezuelan, Linares was again badly cut, this time against Sergio Thompson near the very start of the fight. By the second round he was dropped and finished with his vision compromised and his skin failing him once more.
It felt in that moment that Jorge Linares was done as a top fighter, but it turns out that could not have been further from the truth. The 32 year old has not lost in the five and a half years since that night. He also picked up a vacant lightweight belt in 2014 after a couple years outside of the spotlight. During his reign at 135 lbs the Japanese based Venezuelan has made a bit of a name for himself in the UK of all places too thanks to exciting performances over native sons Kevin Mitchell, Anthony Crolla, and Olympic gold medalist Luke Campbell. The talented Olympian did make a real fight of it in September, but Jorge got just enough of the better of it to walk with a fair split decision win. He cruised in what was essentially a tune up against Golden Boy in house Filipino Mercito Gesta in January last time out.
This is a fascinating fight. Jorge Linares is an extremely technically skilled fighter. He will also be the notably bigger man in the ring with roughly two inches of height and four of reach on his legendary Ukrainian challenger. Yet, Lomachenko has been so utterly dominant over the last couple years that it is hard to imagine him losing this. He has gotten to the point that we expect him to win comfortably even though he is moving up in weight to meet one of the top fighters in the sport. Have we gone mad or is he really that good? We’ll find out Saturday night on ESPN.
Highly touted Dominican prospect Carlos Adames (13-0, 11 KOs) makes his Top Rank debut in the co-main event against veteran Mexican brawler Alejandro Barrera (29-4, 18 KOs) in the co-main event. Adames has looked excellent back home in the DR and has developed a fair bit of insider hype after dominating former titleholder Carlos Molina two fights ago. Barrera is a decent opponent to test him against as he has given prospects and fringe contenders good fights before. Only Errol Spence Jr has really dominated him so far in his career.
The show begins nice and early at 8 PM Eastern time on ESPN so it can be over by 10 for Golden Boy’s show on HBO. ESPN+ lists the prelim broadcast beginning at 4:30 PM Eastern. That portion of the show features some major Olympic prospects in gold medalist Fazliddin Gaibnazarov, extremely popular Irishman Michael Conlan, and the very talented Teofimo Lopez. You should definitely check them out too.
