By: Sean Crose
The undisputed lightweight championship was at stake Saturday night as defending champion Devin Haney took on former world titlist Vasyl Lomachenko in a scheduled 12 round ESPN pay per view main event at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Each man had much at stake. The younger Haney, 29-0, wanted to assert himself as one of the best fighters in the contemporary fight game while the older Lomachenko, 17-2, looked to reestablish himself as a once in a lifetime talent.
Loma had a strong first – but it was close. Both men threw and landed some effective shots. The second, like the first, was high intensity and fast paced. Haney landed well early, Loma landed well later. The third was like the previous two rounds. Loma, however, was having better moments – not that Haney wasn’t having moments of his own. The two men went down when they tied up at the end of the fourth – though Haney had the better flashes in the chapter.
Haney’s body work told the story of the fifth. Loma did well in the sixth, but Haney did better. The man’s body work was paying off. The intense seventh saw both fighters trading punches. Loma’s however, may have been a bit more crisp. It was a VERY close – and entertaining – fight. Things remained close in the eighth. Each man was having terrific moments, Loma with head shots, defending champion Haney with impressive body shots.
By the ninth, the conditioning of the two fighters was a marvel. They wouldn’t slow down, these two. Haney, however, performed better in the round. Loma hurt his man in the tenth. Haney held intelligently, but Loma dominated for the first time in the fight. The eleventh round was easy to describe: Haney simply got beaten up by the veteran Loma. Haney, however, was able to rally and pull off the twelfth. It was quite a fight.
The judges ruled thus:
116-112, 115-113, 115-113, all for Haney.
“I’ve got to take my hat off to Loma,” Haney said afterward. “He’s my toughest opponent.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” said Lomachenko. “All people saw what happened today.”
