Vote for who you want Lomachenko to face
Monday 2 September 2019 13:37, UK
Who do you want to see Vasiliy Lomachenko fight next? The Ukraine master has won world titles in three divisions and could fight new rivals in any of them.
He beat Luke Campbell on Saturday night to become WBA, WBO and WBC lightweight champion having also won the world titles at super-featherweight and featherweight. His promoter Bob Arum suggested he could select the most intriguing opponents from any of those divisions.
Vote for your own dream Lomachenko opponent.
The missing piece to Lomachenko's dominance of the lightweight division is the IBF belt, owned by Commey and defended against Lopez later this year.
"We're looking to win the fourth belt," Lomachenko's promoter Bob Arum said after the WBC title was added to the WBA and WBO on Saturday night.
Conquering an entire division would be a stunning achievement, not least a division two above the one where he began his career.
It would mirror the feats of Oleksandr Usyk (cruiserweight) and Terence Crawford (light-welterweight) in recent years.
Ghana-born Commey currently holds the IBF belt. He told Sky Sports about Lomachenko: "I don't believe he's the best fighter in boxing by a long way. He has a tremendous amateur background, but this is professional boxing, they are two different sports. Personally, I think Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez, Terence Crawford, Errol Spence Jr and Deontay Wilder are above him."
New York's Lopez is still just 22, one of boxing's brightest starlets. He is 15-0, only turned pro three years ago and shares Arum as a promoter with Lomachenko. His biggest issue has been making the 135lbs weight.
'Tank' is the WBA super-featherweight champion, unbeaten in 22, aged just 24, and with a power-punching style that makes a fight with Lomachenko mouthwatering.
Davis is promoted by Floyd Mayweather and there has been plenty of public back-and-forth between the two camps about why a fight hasn't already materialised.
Davis posted a now-deleted tweet earlier this year telling Lomachenko: "I'm a prizefighter, old man. If we fight, I promise I will retire him."
Baltimore's Davis seems to be rare in his ability to irk Lomachenko. This would be a fight with spice.
They have one mutual opponent - Jose Pedraza. Davis knocked Pedraza out at super-featherweight in 2017, Lomachenko went the distance with him at lightweight two years later.
The up-and-coming threat to the world lightweight titles is California's Haney, a 20-year-old who has already amassed a 22-fight unbeaten record.
He will become the mandatory challenger to the WBC belt that Lomachenko won against Campbell if he can beat Zaur Abdullaev on September 13, live on Sky Sports.
Haney was quick to tweet his thoughts about Lomachenko on Saturday night.
His career is guided by promoter Eddie Hearn and he is considered one of America's most exciting boxing talents. Whether Lomachenko sticks around at lightweight for long enough to face Haney remains to be seen.
The IBF and WBA bantamweight champion from Japan is, like Lomachenko, indisputably among the best handful of fighters alive so a match-up between them would be fireworks.
They bring completely different things to the ring but each are as mesmerising - Lomachenko's skills and footwork, Inoue's punch-power which defies logic such is its ferociousness.
Inoue has dispatched three former world champions in his previous three fights, needing less than four combined rounds. He touches opponents and they go down.
Inoue is also a three-weight world champion but skipped one division so has actually moved up four weight classes in his pursuit of excellence. But he would need to go up one more division to featherweight to find Lomachenko in the division that the Ukrainian started in.
The weight is an issue - but the fight is boxing perfection.
The brilliant American is a four-weight world champion (one better than Lomachenko) but is also a stark warning for what happens when you go a step too far.
Garcia, unbeaten in 39, stepped into a fifth division to challenge world welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr but suffered a pasting. Spence Jr was far too big and we don't yet know how much that fight might have depleted from Garcia's future.
A meeting between Lomachenko and Garcia briefly seemed to be on the cards. Garcia was the WBC lightweight champion and Lomachenko wanted to unify belts after beating Anthony Crolla earlier this year. Garcia chose to vacate and challenge Spence Jr instead, and Lomachenko scooped up the vacated WBC belt.
Weight would be no hurdle to finally making Lomachenko vs Garcia - they have been world champions in the same three divisions. They have also both indicated a willingness to make this super-fight a reality.
There is a school of thought that, such is the quality in depth of boxing's best champions at the moment, Lomachenko must go up another weight division and win another title to cement his status as No 1.
IBF super-lightweight champion Taylor from Scotland fights WBA titleholder Prograis of New Orleans on October 26, live on Sky Sports Box Office, in the final of the World Boxing Super Series. Jose Ramirez holds the WBC and WBO belts and has called out the winner, for what would be an undisputed title fight.
That's when Lomachenko could step in.
Success in a fourth division would be another monumental feather in his cap but he has repeatedly said that his preference would be to return to super-featherweight rather than increasing in weight.
