WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (6-1, 4 KOs) could put himself in the driver’s seat for a fight against Manny Pacquiao for 2017 if he defeats Nicholas Walters (26-0-1, 21 KOs) this Saturday night in their fight on HBO. The Lomachenko-Pacquiao fight is one that their promoter Bob Arum wants, but Lomachenko needs to do his part by getting past a very tough Walters.
Lomachenko, 28, is considered a huge favorite to beat Walters, but doesn’t mean anything. Walters is unbeaten, he has the size and punching power advantages, and his goal is to knockout Lomachenko on Saturday to push his own career ahead.
There’s no pressure on Walters in this fight, because he’s expected to lose. With everyone doubting him, Walters is going to be coming out looking to take Lomachenko’s scalp to add to his collection just as Orlando Salido did two years ago in his win over the Ukrainian in 2014.
Lomachenko got a free pass for that loss to Salido, because it was only his second fight of his career. If Lomachenko loses to Walters, he won’t get a free pass from the boxing fans this time. They’ll recognize that Lomachenko was a great amateur fighter, but he’s not a great pro. He’s a flawed pro.
Arum can then go ahead and do whatever he wants with Lomachenko. If he wants to stick still stick him in with Pacquiao off the back of a loss, he can go ahead. Arum has done it before in putting guys in with Pacquiao that had lost their previous fights. I don’t think it’ll bring in a lot of pay-per-view buys, but I can definitely see Arum making that fight regardless of what happens in the Lomachenko-Walters fight.
“This is a great opportunity to show the world my talent and I’m not planning on going the distance, I’ve trained to get him out of the ring before the final bell,” Walters said to Behind The Gloves. “Lomachenko is a two-weight world champion and an Olympic champion so he has a lot of credentials. He had a long-running and far more advanced amateur career than I had so he has a lot of experience in that sense.”
Lomachenko has now won two division world titles since he turns pro two years ago. However, he’s not beaten anyone in the class of Walters. Lomachenko’s best wins have come against Gary Russell Jr. and Roman “Rocky” Martinez. Russell Jr. is a good fighter, but he’s not someone that would likely be able to hold up 12 rounds of pressure and power punching from a big guy like Walters.
That would be a very tough fight for Russell to deal with. Lomachenko beat Russell by using a lot of movement, because the American fighter was getting the better of him with his blinding hand speed when the two of them were mixing it up. Lomachenko appeared to have a size advantage over Russell Jr. in that fight. Lomachenko won by the scores 116-112, 114-114 and 116-112. It was definitely a close fight.
Lomachenko proved that he was better than Russell Jr., but not that much better. Lomachenko was just a little bit better than Russell Jr. When you figure that Walters would beat Russell Jr. too, it tells you what kind of fight that Lomachenko has in front of him this Saturday night. I think the bettors have it completely wrong in them selecting Lomachenko as the favorite.
I think it’s a 50-50 fight between Lomachenko and Walters. However, I do believe that if the fight goes to the scorecards, Walters will wind up losing even if he totally dominates Lomachenko. I think Lomachenko is too popular at this point to be beaten by a decision unless he’s dropped six or seven times to where there’s no chance of the judges messing up the decision. Walters doesn’t have the cache behind his boxing career for him to be given a decision over a popular fighter like Lomachenko in my opinion.
It’s nice that Walters is talking about wanting to get a knockout against Lomachenko, because I honestly believe he’ll badly need a knockout for him to get out of the ring with the Ukrainian fighter’s WBO super featherweight title slung over his shoulder. Getting a knockout over Lomachenko will remove all controversy, and I’ll be good for boxing after all the complaints from fans about last Saturday’s match between Sergey Kovalev and Andre Ward on HBO pay-per-view. I didn’t see there being any controversy. Ward won the fight, period. Walters can make sure he doesn’t get put in a similar position by him going out and making clean work of Lomachenko by knocking him out cold on Saturday night. There’s something about getting a knockout that makes things so final. Fans are left in the position where they can’t say anything other than talk about how they misjudged how talented the losing fighter was.
“If the fight goes the distance, you leave it up to the judges and sometimes the judges can see it differently to the rest of the world, but it’s their opinion that counts – I try best to not leave it to judges,” said Walters about his fight against Lomachenko. “The judges are there to judge, my job is to fight, whatever decision they come up with, we live with it. I have twelve rounds to try and take it out of their hands.”
Walters has a refreshing outlook to his fights. He doesn’t want to leave it in the hands of the judges, because if he does, it gives them power over him. We saw in Walters’ last fight against Jason Sosa how it’s not a good thing for him to let three judges be the deciders in his fights. The judges scored the Walters-Sosa fight a 10-round draw last December in their fight in Verona, New York.
Walters, not surprisingly, was unhappy with the results of that match, as he felt that he had definitely won the contest. Many of the boxing fans felt that Walters had won as well. It was a lesson for Walters, as he learned that you’ve got 10 to 12 rounds to make sure the judges don’t have a say so in your fights. If you can knock out your opponent, then the judges can’t decide on the fight.