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Originally posted by HarvardBlue
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Then in his first fight at 135, Loma was the first to outbox, and stop to the body, lightweight champ Linares, who given that Mikey has been sneakily struggling to make 135 this entire time, which is why even at 135 he had a detour at 140 before coming back down, was the real #1 lightweight when Loma fought him. Yes Mikey appears better because he's really a 140 pounder draining down and that's why he looks so much more powerful and stronger, but out of the real normal sized lightweights, Linares was the best and Loma was the first to outbox him and stop him to the body as well.
So Loma doesn't have to do anything spectacular, he just has to maintain a high level. It's Crawford that is what, 3 top wins behind Loma still? 4? If you don't count Rigo, it's 3. If you count Rigo and Gamboa both, it's 3. If you count Rigo but not Gamboa, since Gamboa was never as good as Rigo, and was best at 126 meanwhile Crawford's natural weight is 147, then it's 4.
So 3 or 4. Loma needs to fight Crolla 3 more times, while Crawford fights three top guys on the level of Linares, Walters, and GRJ in a row, and then Crawford might be tied for Loma outside of the fact that he still isn't fighting as high above his natural weight as Loma is. But until then, the only reason the commentators keep mentioning Crawford's name and saying there is a debate is to drive ratings, clicks, and to promote Crawford because he is ESPN's only big American star. Otherwise all they have is foreign guys like Loma and Fury and I guess they want one of their stars to be American.
That's it. It's no surprise the only media to have Crawford #1 P4P, hilariously, is the "American Boxing Writers Association." Whether they're homers, or they're helping their corporate buddies, who knows, but there's zero argument based on any of the data available to rank Crawford above Loma in the P4P, and the compubox stats back that up too if you go look at their leaderboards, not just everything else I said. Loma has performed better, statistically, than Crawford, despite facing tougher opposition than Crawford. He is the P4P King for a reason.
And for the record, in the same weight class as Loma is currently fighting, Terence Crawford went 12 rounds with Ricky Burns, and lost 3 or 4 rounds. Crolla beat Burns at 135, and Loma just annihilated Crolla. But when Crawford struggled with Burns, no one said ****. This is why people say there is major bias against Lomachenko, or for Crawford, because you constantly see these insane double standards over and over. People don't even bring up that since 18 years of age, Lomachenko has moved up almost twice as many pounds in weight as Crawford has, yet he's still fighting better guys than Crawford and performing as dominantly or more than Crawford fighting at a much higher weight, with a much greater degree of difficulty in terms of height, reach, and weight, than Crawford.
I mean, isn't that sort of the definition of pound for pound? I'm telling you, if Lomachenko was American, and Crawford was Ukrainian, the commentators wouldn't even be talking about Crawford in the same sentence as Lomachenko. Don't get me wrong, Crawford is great, but Lomachenko is one of those boxers like Floyd and Manny who only come around every few decades. As great as Crawford is, there is a gap there, in both resume and technical ability, between him and Loma that the commentators are downplaying, in my opinion out of homer bias, because, again in my opinion, Crawford is an American welterweight they want to market on big PPVs, while Lomachenko is a foreigner who doesn't speak good english and fights in a less popular weight class for casual fans. Remember, it's like they always say, "boxing is a business," and for BUSINESS reasons, it pays to promote Crawford as Lomachenko's equal in the ring. But in terms of the actual sport of boxing, Lomachenko is a ways ahead of the pack right now. Crawford may be leading the pack, but he's still back with the pack a ways behind Loma.
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