By Edward Chaykovsky
Last year, Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum mentioned that his "dream fight" was a catch-weight battle between two of his most talented fighters, Vasyl Lomachenko and Manny Pacquiao.
Both camps expressed interest in the fight, but they were worlds apart on the weight.
Lomachenko felt he was too small to fight Pacquiao at anything higher than 135-pounds - while Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach, demanded a weight limit of 140-pounds. At the moment Lomachenko is the WBO world champion at 130-pounds, while Pacquiao the WBO champion at 147-pounds.
Lomachenko (8-1, 6 KOs) was in action this past Saturday night in Maryland, when he dominated and stopped 25-1 underdog Jason Sosa in the main event on an HBO televised tripleheader.
Pacquiao, 38-years-old and a record of (59-6-2, 38 KOs, is returning to the ring on July in Australia when he defends his title against 2012 Australian Olympian Jeff Horn.
Lomachenko, who had an amateur record of 396-1 and is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, sees no reason to chase after a boxer who is at the end of his career - because he believes a win over Pacquiao, at this point, will not carry the same weight as it would have a few years ago.
"In terms of fighting Manny Pacquiao, he is near the end of his career," Lomachenko told Sporting News. "In the next two to three years he will be at the end of his career. And I’m not going to go in there and beat an old guy. It’s complete nonsense for me to chase him. He has his own career. I have my own career."
"I think that I have a lot of good fighters in my division and at 135 and we can go in there and find out who is the best. Now, would be crazy for me to go in there and chase Pacquiao. He is like three years from now."
Lomachenko is already a two division world champion and ready to move up to lightweight to pursue a third world crown. Pacquiao is the only fighter to win world titles in eight weight divisions. While there continues to be comparisons between the two, Lomachenko believes those comparisons are inaccurate.
"People are comparing me to Manny Pacquiao," Lomachenko said. "It’s a completely different thing. Manny Pacquiao started when he was 18 years old and he was growing throughout his career. His body was growing and that’s how he got to where he’s at."
"I started my career at the age of 25. Most of my body was already developed and I still competed in two different weight classes and looking to get into a third different weight class. I just don’t think its fair enough for me to go to 140 right away. You can’t compare two guys like Kell Brook and Gennady Golovkin as Brook jumped two weight classes up and look at what happened. It really depends. The weight classes were made for a reason."