By Keith Idec

LAS VEGAS – Bob Arum would be fine with putting Vasyl Lomachenko in the ring with Gary Russell Jr. again.

Russell has long said that he wants another shot at Lomachenko, who beat him by majority decision in June 2014 to win the then-vacant WBO world featherweight title in Carson, California. The 2008 American Olympian told BoxingScene.com earlier this year that working with a since-fired strength and conditioning coach caused Russell to have trouble making the 126-pound limit for the Lomachenko match and adversely affected his performance.

Russell (27-1, 16 KOs), of Capitol Heights, Maryland, would need to move up to at least 130 pounds to fight Lomachenko again. The professional relationship between Arum, Lomachenko’s promoter, and Al Haymon, Russell’s adviser, has improved and probably wouldn’t be an obstacle in making a Lomachenko-Russell rematch.

Arum just doesn’t think Russell really wants to face this improved Lomachenko (7-1, 5 KOs), despite what the WBC world featherweight champion has said.

“Russell, if he wants to fight him, [we’d do it] tomorrow,” Arum said following Lomachenko’s technical knockout of Jamaica’s Nicholas Walters on Saturday night. “Of course he would fight Russell again. But Russell might not want to fight him. Russell’s too intelligent to wanna fight him. That’s really true. That doesn’t say anything bad about Russell. Russell’s a hell of a fighter. But, you know, Lomachenko won pretty decisively when they fought.”

Judges Max DeLuca and Pat Russell scored that 12-round, WBO-mandated fight, 116-112, for Lomachenko. The third judge, Lisa Giampa, scored it even (114-114).

The 28-year-old Russell has fought just three times since losing to Lomachenko, not since dropping Patrick Hyland (31-3, 15 KOs) three times on his way to a second-round TKO win April 16 in Mashantucket, Connectictut. One of those wins was an impressive fourth-round stoppage of Mexico’s Jhonny Gonzalez (62-10, 52 KOs) to win the WBC world featherweight title in March 2015.

Lomachenko, a two-time Olympic gold medalist from Ukraine, is 5-0 (4 KOs) since he defeated Russell. He is open to moving up to 135 pounds for the right fights and might need to advance to 140 pounds if he wants a lucrative shot at Filipino superstar Manny Pacquiao (59-6-2, 38 KOs).

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.