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Lomachenko dominates Sosa, seeks future fights with Garcia, Crawford

Photo / @TRboxing
Fighters Network
08
Apr

OXON HILL, Maryland — There were those sparing moments when Jason Sosa walked into the maw of the lion with no trepidation. No one had to tell him he wasn’t supposed to be beat Vasyl Lomachenko, so he was willing to take a chance or two, and sometimes those few risks were worth it.

But Lomachenko is a little different than anyone the tough, hard-nosed 29-year-old from Camden, New Jersey ever faced. By the third round, it showed. Sosa’s face began showing fissures. By the seventh, his eyes were swelling and his left eye was nearly closed. By the ninth, the sellout crowd of 2,828 at the MGM National Harbor, in Oxon Hill, Maryland, had to begin wondering when commonsense would intervene and the fight would be stopped.

Thankfully, it was—by Sosa’s corner.

Lomachenko (8-1, 5 knockouts), THE RING’s No. 1-rated junior lightweight, successfully defended his WBO 130-pound title when Sosa (20-2-4, 15 KOs) didn’t come out for the 10th round.



“I wanted to do my job, and show everybody the high tech,” Lomachenko said, referencing his nickname. “I think I did my job really well. I model my style after my father, this is the Lomachenko style of fighting. I’m going to go home and rest and start negotiating with the other champions. If they refuse, I’m going to move up to 135.”

Does that mean fighting Mikey Garcia?

“I would like to make that fight as soon as possible with Mikey Garcia,” Lomachenko said, and was then asked about avenging his one pro loss to Orlando Salido. “The first time we fought, it was a fourth grader fighting a 12th grader. I now graduated to the university and I want to invite Salido to my university.”

But Lomachenko didn’t rule out something even larger and more challenging—Terence Crawford.

“I only want to fight champions,” Lomachenko said. “I’m going to call Top Rank on Monday to see if any 130-pound champion will fight me. I don’t care who it is. If they don’t, I’m working my way towards a bigger picture and that’s Crawford.”

There were times when Lomachenko was all over Sosa so much the former pizza maker may have thought the former amateur star split in three. In one sequence in the fifth, Lomachenko peppered Sosa with shots to the body and head, and then darted behind Sosa, leaving Sosa trying to find where he was.

Later in the fifth, Lomachenko, with the partisan Ukrainian crowd chanting his name, “Lomachenko, Lomachenko, Lomachenko,” had Sosa in what appeared to be serious trouble. But Sosa somehow managed to get out, though it was very apparent the class difference between the two, and Lomachenko was putting on a virtuoso performance, pitching a shutout.

Photo / @HBOBoxing

In the sixth, “Lomo” had some fun, as Sosa came rushing at him. Lomachenko grinned, stepped back and played the matador with his cape, with a little twirl to the left and a little to the right. Then Lomachenko went back to work, methodically breaking down Sosa with different angles, mixing punches with varied impacts. He’d start by first tapping Sosa, then landing harder and harder punches to the same area.

Sosa couldn’t do anything about it.

Not many can.

In the seventh, both of Sosa’s eyes began to swell. From there, it seemed a matter of time before referee Kenny Chevalier would stop it or Sosa’s corner. Sosa landed a few body shots in the round as Lomachenko laid against the ropes. And just like that, as if someone flicked a switch, Lomachenko went into maul mode and pummeled Sosa at will.

Lomachenko blasted away at will in the eighth, with Chevalier looking in closely. It was a testament to Sosa’s grit, but his corner had to ask themselves how much more punishment were they willing to let their fighter take?

Sosa’s corner did their fighter a favor by calling it over after the ninth.

“Nothing really worked for me, he was in a rhythm,” Sosa said.

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