In an HBO televised fight last Saturday night, WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (8-1, 6 KOs) annihilated Jason Sosa (20-2-4, 15 KOs) by a 9h round knockout. The fight saw the 29-year-old Lomachenko hitting Sosa when and wherever he wanted to for 9 rounds. After the 9th, Sosa’s trainer asked that it be stopped. Teferee Kenny Chevalier then stopped the bout. The official time of the TKO was at 3:00 of round 9. The fight lasted through the 9th round.
There were a lot of boxing fans that showed up to see Lomachenko fight Sosa last Saturday night at the MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland. The fight was supposed to be one that wuld have a lot of twoway action, but it didn’t turn out that way. Lomachenko hit Sosa with shots that he was unable to respond to in most rounds. It was like Lomachenko was painting a brilliant painting the way he was able to hit Sosa with shots.
The fight turned ugly in the last 3 rounds when Lomachenko began to taunt Sosa, pretending to be a matador. It wasn’t needed by Lomachenko. The fight was won. He showed very little class by doing this. If this was a baseball game, it would be a team teasing their opposing team that was down 14-0. Why do it? It didn’t make Lomachenko look good. It made him look like a poor winner.
“It was the accumulation of punches, and the fact that I didn’t want to see him get hurt, that I stopped the fight,” said Sosa’s trainer Raul Rivas.
If Sosa’s trainer Rivas wanted to do him a big favor, he would have stopped the fight after the 6th. It was clear after the 6th that Sosa was not going to win the fight. Letting him take punishment for three more rounds was not a good thing, because he was hit frequently and he landed few punches in those last 3 rounds.
I would have had the fight stopped if I was Sosa’s trainer. When you let your over-matched opponent take punishment like that, it’s not good for him and definitely not good for the boxing fans that paid to watch the fight or the ones that tuned in to see it on HBO World Championship Boxing last Saturday night.
“I came to show my ‘High Tech’ style and to prove that I am the best fighter in the world,” said Lomachenko. “I think I did my job.”
The results of the fight showed that Lomachenko was too good for Sosa. Lomachenko needs to make a decision whether he wants to continue to fight guys that aren’t competitive with him at super featherweight or if he wants to move up to the lightweight division to find bigger fights against guys that the boxing public cares to see him fight against.
Oleksandr Gvozdyk TKOs Yuniesky Gonzalez
On the undercard of the Vasyl Lomachenko vs. Jason Sosa card, Oleksandr “The Nail” Gvozdyk (13-0, 11 KOs) smashed Yuniesky Gonzalez (18-3, 14 KOs) by a 3rd round technical knockout. Gonzalez was down once in the 3rd round. His corner stopped the fight shortly after the knockdown due to him being unable to defend himself. Gonzalez was on weak legs after he was knocked down. He was taking shots without being able to block them. In other words, Gonzalez was utterly defenseless at the time the fight was stopped.
Gvozdyk took a few big shots from Gonzalez in round 1, but he was still able to control the round with his speedy combinations. Gvozdyk dictated the action on the otside with his jab and fast combinations. Gonzalez lacked the agility, speed and the arm length to deal with the faster shots by Gvozdyk.
The fight was stopped at 2:55 of round 3. Gonzalez was hit with some really hard blows in the 4rd round that prompted his corner to let the referee know to have the fight stopped. In the end, Gvozdyk was hitting him with everything he threw without Gonzalez being able to get out of the way of the punishing shots.
“He was the best boxer I ever fought,” Gvozdyk said . “Once I hurt him, I just kept throwing punches.”
Gvozdyk said he wants to fight for a world title. He mentioned Sergey Kovalev as someone he’d like to fight. It would be interesting if Gvozdyk earned his way to a title shot by fighting Artur Beterbiev. That would be a good fight to watch. Beterbiev is a much different fighter than Gonzalez. It wouldn’t be so easy for Gvozdyk to and at will against Beterbiev without getting hit back hard.
Oleksandr Usyk decisions Michael Hunter
In the first fight of the televised card on HBO Boxing, WBO cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk (12-0, 10 KOs) pounded out a 12 round unanimous decision win over Michael Hunter (12-1, 8 KOs). Hunter, 28, was close to being stopped in the 12th round when Usyk went after him with a prolonged series of combinations that lasted almost the entire. Usyk appeared to throw over 100 punches in the round. Hunter took the shots, but he was very hurt much of the time. The referee gave him a standing eight count to give him a chance to collect himself after Hunter fell back against the ropes. The ropes kept Hunter from falling down, so the referee gave him a standing eight count.
The final scores were 117-110, 117-110 and 117-110.
Usyk showe how good his offense can be when he throws a lot of punches. He’s very hard to beat when he’s focusing on throwing shots. Hunter was doing a good job of making Usyk missed, but he couldn’t make all of his shots miss. A lot of them landed cleanly.
It was a good win for Usyk. He showed that he could beat a very good fighter in Hunter. This was the type of fighter that Usyk likely would have lost to if h were older. Hunter really pushed Usyk by throwing a lot of constant shots. They weren’t thrown with a lot of power, but they were constant. Usyk was forced to outwork Hunter by throwing more punches than him.
Leave a Reply