Comments Thread For: “Fighting Words” — A Crash Course for Vasyl Lomachenko

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

by David P. Greisman - There are reasons why situations such as Saturday’s are so rare — and such uncommon circumstances are why so much marketing hype was put behind the fight between featherweight titleholder Orlando Salido and challenger Vasyl Lomachenko.

The marketing claimed that Lomachenko was vying for a world title in just his second pro fight and that he would be breaking a record if he won.

Lomachenko, a 26-year-old from Ukraine, is considered one of the top amateur talents of recent years. He won gold medals in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, and captured amateur world championships in 2009 and 2011. His legend was also built in the nearly 400 fights he had in the unpaid ranks, with only one of those bouts ending in defeat.

After the 2012 Olympics, Lomachenko joined up with the World Series of Boxing, which is affiliated with the organization formerly known as the International Amateur Boxing Association (or AIBA), now called the International Boxing Association. Thanks to that affiliation, WSB competitors would be able to get paid without losing their Olympic eligibility. [Click Here To Read More]

[Suckmedry]

Loma will be fine, he just needs to fight a few guys like he fought in his debut, then smooth over some things in those fights then step it back up.

At the end of the day he went 12 and made it close against a solid vet who was working him over hard and making it dirty, plus he was giving away eleven lbs at fw, that's fkd.

[Boxinganalysis]

It's absurd how people are talking like Lomachenko got schooled. Many people think he actually won the fight. But the big story of this fight was Salido getting away with LEADING WITH HIS HEAD the entire 12 rounds as evidenced here : proboxinganalysis.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/robbery-in-texas .If the referee had put a stop to this (like pro refs always normally do ) Lomachenko would have been able to 'let hit hands go' and what you saw in the 12th would have happened the entire fight.

[Hougigo]

Ouch....7k free seats left for Garcia/Herrera?
Better work the lighting and the camera so we don't see

[thesquaretruth]

Lomachenko was really handicapped in this fight due to the awful job done by the referee Laurence Cole. Salido was hitting him low, coming in with his head, punching off the breaks, tying up Lomo's hands all while the referee was on the other side of the ring acting like he is observing a smooth boxing match when in fact it was a tough grueling battle and he should've been right there in the middle of all that action observing. Ref's positioning throughout the fight ****** in general, he wasn't stern and he didn't have much authority in the ring from Salido in this case. I am not hating on Salido if the ref. lets you get away with dirty tactics then why stop employing them. Cole couldn't even break them up properly, he would come in as the fighters clinched and would start touching them and then let them go without telling them to break, so in a sense he was confusing them Lomo at least to the point where he had to push Salido off himself after every clinch where the referee should have been doing that and then he has the audacity to warn Lomachenko about pushing? Plus look at how many times he is touching the fighters, Lomachenko more for some reason, during the exchanges. I mean who does that? Again taking nothing away from Salido he read the situation with the ref real quick and based on his ring savy and experience continued to employ his tactics and game. Lomachenko should've used his jab more to figure out his distance and time Salido coming in and make him pay for the misses with straight punches like he did in the 12th. A good close fight that could have went either way, I can live with the outcome. Loma is destined for greatness and Salido has a few more upsets in him.

[MELLY-MEL...]

Lomo will be fine.

[racostaa]

Arum thought that basically any two gold Olympian medalist will be like Rigo but Rigo is a unique boxer with natural talented out of this world without other near him in talent. Lomachenko and Zimming could be good fighters but they need to take the necessary steps in professionalism before a title. Is an irony that Arum is giving all his effort to create Zimming and Lomachenko who are not exceptional fighters at the same time who is trying to destroy Rigo who is his only one exceptional. Why his obsession against Rigo and he is so different with Zimming and Lomachenko?. I like Lomachenko. He seems to be a good guy, but I only was happy for his lost because of Arum interest in show there are other Rigos and is not

[kafkod]

11lb is too much weight to give away with guys this size. On the night Salido came in as a welterweight while Loma was inside the limit for lightweight.
Loma could still have won it though if he'd thrown more punches when he had the openings, instead of just 1 or 2 then move away and reset.
That's a bad habit caused by the ridiculous computer scoring system which was in place through the whole of his amateur career.
With that system, if a guy threw a fast 4/5 punch combination and all the punches landed, would he get 4/5 points for doing it?
Nope, he would just get 1 point, because the judges would not be able to press the damned buttons on their computers quickly enough.
The result of this was that top amateurs stopped using combinations and body punches. They just concentrated on single, clean shots to the head instead, because that was the best way to rack up points.
Loma needs to adapt his style, start throwing combos and more body punches. To do that, he needs experience and a good pro coach. Hopefully, his Dad will realise that and step aside now.

[HeroBando]

Arum thought that basically any two gold Olympian medalist will be like Rigo but Rigo is a unique boxer with natural talented out of this world without other near him in talent. Lomachenko and Zimming could be good fighters but they need to take the necessary steps in professionalism before a title. Is an irony that Arum is giving all his effort to create Zimming and Lomachenko who are not exceptional fighters at the same time who is trying to destroy Rigo who is his only one exceptional. Why his obsession against Rigo and he is so different with Zimming and Lomachenko?. I like Lomachenko. He seems to be a good guy, but I only was happy for his lost because of Arum interest in show there are other Rigos and is not

Theres no obsession against Rigo. Hes had it pretty good with Arum. Lara gets similarly criticized by his promoter but unlike Rigo doesnt get the money and opportunities

[Dr Rumack]

11lb is too much weight to give away with guys this size. On the night Salido came in as a welterweight while Loma was inside the limit for lightweight.
Loma could still have won it though if he'd thrown more punches when he had the openings, instead of just 1 or 2 then move away and reset.
That's a bad habit caused by the ridiculous computer scoring system which was in place through the whole of his amateur career.
With that system, if a guy threw a fast 4/5 punch combination and all the punches landed, would he get 4/5 points for doing it?
Nope, he would just get 1 point, because the judges would not be able to press the damned buttons on their computers quickly enough.
The result of this was that top amateurs stopped using combinations and body punches. They just concentrated on single, clean shots to the head instead, because that was the best way to rack up points.
Loma needs to adapt his style, start throwing combos and more body punches. To do that, he needs experience and a good pro coach. Hopefully, his Dad will realise that and step aside now.

A lot of people seem to be deliberately ignoring the weight factor. 11lbs is a significant difference at welterweight, at featherweight it's ridiculous. It made what was already going to be a risky fight into an extremely difficult one.

What's more significant than the defeat however is the pity-pat stuff that you refer to. I don't know if that's something that's deeply engrained at this point, or if it was primarily a tactical decision to persist with a stick and move approach.

Clearly they were concerned about pacing, and staying out of exchanges with Salido. Going into the fight, that made sense. But when Salido started walking him down and getting inside with ease, his corner were far too slow to respond to the changed landscape. When he opened up and put shots together, he stood Salido straight up and broke his momentum. But it was left too late.

The fact that he still had gas in the tank in the 12th round, especially after all those body shots (and low blows) is a significant positive. He's certainly a championship level fighter. But stylistically something will have to change, or at the very least, he'll have to adjust to his opponent much quicker in the future.