Review by AllTheBestFights.com: 2017-04-08, great fight between Vasyl Lomachenko and Jason Sosa: it gets three stars.The 2012 and 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist and Wbo Fw champion Vasyl Lomachenko entered this fight with a pro boxing record of 7-1-0 (5 knockouts; but he has an amazing amateur record of 396-1) and he is ranked as the No.1 super featherweight in the world. He lost to Orlando Salido at his second professional bout in 2014 (via split decision, Salido vs Lomachenko), but then he has won the vacant Wbo Fw title against Gary Russell Jr in 2014 (=Lomachenko vs Russell Jr) and the Wbo super-Fw belt against Roman Martinez in 2016 (4-stars fight, Martinez vs Lomachenko); after this bout ‘Hi-Tech’ Lomachenko defended his title once with Nicholas Walters (=Lomachenko vs Walters).
His opponent, the Wba super-Fw champion Jason Sosa, has an official boxing record of 20-1-4 (15 KOs=75%) and he entered as the No.5 in the same weight class. ‘El Canito’ Sosa suffered his only loss at his fifth professional fight in 2010, against Tre’Sean Wiggins, since then he has collected 17 victories and 3 draws, drawing with Nicholas Walters in 2015 (=Walters vs Sosa) and winning over Javier Fortuna (=Fortuna vs Sosa) and Stephen Smith in 2016 (=Sosa vs Smith). Vasyl Lomachenko vs Jason Sosa is valid for the WBO World super featherweight title. Watch the video and rate this fight!
Date: 2017-04-08
Where: MGM National Harbor, Oxon Hill, Maryland, USA
Division: super featherweight (130 lbs, 59.0 kg)
Title: WBO World super featherweight title
Lomachenko’s previous fight: Vasyl Lomachenko vs Nicholas Walters
Sosa’s previous fight: Jason Sosa vs Stephen Smith
Lomachenko’s next fight: Vasyl Lomachenko vs Miguel Marriaga
Sosa’s next fight: Jason Sosa vs Yuriorkis Gamboa
Lomachenko vs Sosa Fight Video:
(Free embeddable video hosted on Youtube and not uploaded by AllTheBestFights)
Official video
Official highlights
A genius in the ring. He has Mayweather’s supernatural gifts and IQ, but goes those one better with a punishing attack. My favorite boxer since Roy Jones Jr.
I also had a thought for RJJr watching this fight! I remember when I started boxing, I was 15. He was at the top of his game at that time and everybody at the gym was looking up to him as the genius and the most entertaining figure in boxing. We were trying to emulate his moves and everything he did. I believe Lomachenko will have the same kind of effect.
Great to hear that memory, Olivier! How long did you carry on in the sport?
I think you’re right and Loma will prove influential. He has art and violence to spare. Casual fans should like the attack. Connoisseurs will too as well as everything he does between attacks.
NB: the announcing on the card tonight was so moronic I turned off the volume. After a couple of minutes, this felt wrong, somehow, so I put Richard Strauss on the stereo and cranked up the speakers. “Also Punched Zarathustra”!
Thanks as always to our great hosts at allthebestfights,
I did boxing a few years only, I had to stop due to an injury (right eardrum). But as you can see, I’m still very passionate about boxing after all these years! Have you ever boxed?
Hats off for bringing classical music on a boxing forum! And just like Nietzsche’s character, Loma is a real superman!
Haha, touché!
I am more than happy to put away the music and hear the announcers…unless it is that trio of morons again! Next time, like Alex in A Clockwork Orange, I’ll bring out the heavy guns: “lovely Ludwig Van.”
Too bad about the injury. But these passions go on, just in different forms, don’t they?
I learned the rudiments from my Golden Gloves father. However, I wasn’t cut out for competition. Instead, I ended up in foil fencing, where, being a skinny kid, I could dart around jabbing behind lots of padding. ;-)
Haha! One of my favorite trio of annoucers is Box Azteca’s: Lamazon, Chavez Sr and Barrera! Mexicans know how to celebrate boxing.
Wow! That’s quite an accomplishment for your father! Did he boxed in prize fights after the GG? For my part, I think I had the same problem as you. I was a 6’2 welterweight! I was trained by Deano Clavet (http://boxrec.com/boxer/38266), who’s fought against Alex Hilton twice for a WBC national belt and canadian championship. He’s now an actor in Quebec! Cool guy, really. But yeah, I’ve been watching boxing since I was 5 at a time when all kids were idolizing Mike Tyson. So I guess boxing as been in my life as far as I can remember.
Foil fencing! Woah.. Everytime I watch the olympics I’m always amazed by how fast this sport is. Everything seems to happen in a blink of an eye!
That is really impressive, Olivier. I understand now how you observe and comment on the fights here with such expertise.
Yes, I agree about Mexican culture and its approach to our great sport. Barrera, btw, is a fighter I loved. One of my favorite fights to re-watch is his dismantling of the slick, kinetic Prince Naseem. If there was ever a fight that argues for fundamentals over flash, this one is a virtual parable!
No, my dad never turned pro. Growing up near Chicago in tough parts, his parents were involved in running a youth center in the postwar period, then a popular social idea to “keep kids out of trouble.” Well, soon a ring was installed, which led to trouble of another kind! As you did, I picked up the sport at an early age; around age 5, I would have been listening to Ali fights on the radio. (And vainly trying to puzzle out what was happening, the technology being so ill-suited to the sport that it was always leaving me in paroxysms of worry about my hero).
Fencing meant a lot to me in my teens, all those years ago. Daunting, humbling, thrilling, always challenging. No other area high school had the sport in the 1970s, so we could only compete against university athletes (naturally, they destroyed us). No doubt that colored my view of competition, but I could not wait to get back to work and try to improve — my mask, my foil, and Plan B!
TR analysts were falling short of superlative to describe the greatness of what they were seeing in Lomachenko again tonight. They named some of the greatest fighters in the history of the sport. Willy Pepp. Sugar Ray. But no, Lomachenko’s style is unique. This guy will definitely change boxing.
Is he the best p4p right now? Probably. But by beating Sosa, he’s not giving any more clues then we already had after he TKOed Walters. But again, it was the fashion in which he dominated this very game and tough opponent that leaves us all in awe. And this time, he also added some theatratical moves to his game!
Best p4p is between Loma, Crawford (I dream of a fight between these two!), with Kovalev and Golovkin not very far behind.
I will never miss a Loma’s fight until he retires.
Olivier: I don’t know why they always forget to mention Nicolino Lochee in the list of the greatest fighters when it comes to discuss unique fighting styles. May be because he was “just” a south-american boxer. Racism perhaps? .
I’ve only seen one Locchee fight (the one you linked) so it’s hard for me to make comparison. Based on what I saw there from him, he had tremendous defense, but mostly by moving his upper body while his feet remainded quite static and doing so, not creating as much angles as others did in the history of boxing.
I wouldn’t say it’s about racism. I believe Locchee remains still unknown to most boxing fans, probably because he never fought outside South-America, unlike a guy like Monzon who’s acknowledged as an all-time great in a more prominent weightclass.
Olivier: I cannot agree more with your comment. You right, he had an excellent move of his upper body but was very static. He really doesn’t need more moves since he was almost untouchable. His main problem was the total lack of power but was able to destroy some guys because his accuracy and consequent punch accumulation. On the other hand his records as amateur and professional are almost second to none.
Olivier: unfortunately, there are very few videos available from Nicolino’s fights. I have a very nice article from an American reporter talking about his career and achievements as well as his qualifications. It is good because compare him with Floy M. and others. I can send the link to you as soon as I’m back from my vacation
Tango, you have the honor to be the only one who could submit a fight pre-2000 and we all enjoyed it :)
Mattsnow: Thank you for being so kind. I know you enjoyed it.
Dido to the comments below.
One person no one brought up in regards to being alike, albeit better, is Joe Calzaghe.
Thought – these Ukrainian fighters are
all highly skilled. Come to fight. And most are intellectually more inept than their contemporaries from other countries. I say this due the interview at then end. I’m intrigued to know Lomachenko’s math skills.
As with most – I believe only size will take him down.
Why do you think Lomachenko is stupid? The first Ukranians I think of are the Klitschkos and they certainly are not lacking intellect.
***On a second read, I think you meant to say adept, not inept.***
Let me start off by saying I’ve never been really impressed with Calzaghe, and tbh, think his career is way overrated.
Don’t get me wrong; he was a fantastic fighter. But I don’t really see a comparison between him and Lomachenko. To me, he seemed more like… a better version of Sergio Martinez, perhaps.
If you watch his fights, Calzaghe tends to rush in with winging shots a lot and gets caught quite a bit. Totally different from how Loma keeps it ultra-clean at all times, utilizing angles to make himself unavailable to get hit.
I think he meant by his footwork,and always being in a position to land. I think Calazage lacked the angles that Lomo has.
2 years later…just wondering…are you still saying “dido”? The word is “ditto”
Wow and I thought Pacquiao had angles. This guy is nuts.
Excellent fight a 4 star candidate with no doubts. Vasyl with his master moves is a “ghost” in the ring and practically untouchable in spite of the quality and qualifications of any of his past contenders and future ones. His boxing style and ring domination are incredible which in fact would keep him as the unchallenged champion in this category for many more years to come. Sosa tried really hard with all his heart to no avail.
If you love boxing you got to love Loma. What he does is more than just fighting.It is actually beautiful. When you watch it in slow-mo it is amazing.. Loma made Sosa look so ineffective. Just like all he did to all the others.