By Keith Idec
The feeling still isn’t likely to be mutual, but Vasyl Lomachenko wants to fight Gervonta Davis.
Lomachenko made that clear Tuesday by sending a Tweet to Floyd Mayweather Jr. that referred to Mayweather’s reluctance to match Davis against him. Mayweather, whose company promotes Davis, has repeatedly indicated that Davis won’t fight Lomachenko at any point in the foreseeable future.
Lomachenko’s Tweet stated: @FloydMayweather It would have been an honor to fight you in your prime but I’m not talking about you. Please stop hiding your fighter.
The WBO super featherweight champion sent that Tweet to clarify what he meant by a message he sent just a few minutes earlier. That Tweet, also sent to Mayweather, included a GIF of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson motioning for an opponent to come meet him in a wrestling ring.
That Tweet was misinterpreted to mean Lomachenko wants to fight the 40-year-old Mayweather (50-0, 27 KOs), who retired for the third time following his 10th-round technical knockout of UFC star Conor McGregor on August 26 in Las Vegas.
The undefeated Davis doesn’t have a fight scheduled, but the 23-year-old contender is expected to head in a different direction than Lomachenko for his first fight of 2018. The unbeaten Baltimore native lost his IBF super featherweight title the day before his last bout because he couldn’t make the division’s 130-pound limit.
Davis (19-0, 18 KOs) knocked out Costa Rica’s Francisco Fonseca (21-1-1, 15 KOs) in the eighth round the next day on the Mayweather-McGregor undercard at T-Mobile Arena.
Lomachenko, meanwhile, seeks an opponent for a return that’ll probably take place sometime in April. The Ukrainian southpaw, fresh off his technical-knockout victory over Guillermo Rigondeaux on December 9 in New York, will remain at 130 pounds for his next fight if he can’t find an appealing opponent at lightweight.
Two opponents that interested the 29-year-old Lomachenko (10-1, 8 KOs) following his win against Rigondeaux (17-1, 11 KOs, 1 NC) are no longer options for his next fight.
Mikey Garcia (37-0, 30 KOs), the unbeaten WBC lightweight champion, will remain at 140 pounds for his next bout. He’ll try to become a four-division champion when he challenges IBF junior welterweight champ Sergey Lipinets (13-0, 10 KOs) on February 10 at the Alamodome in San Antonio.
And Orlando Salido, the only fighter to defeat Lomachenko as a professional, lost by ninth-round knockout to Miguel Roman on December 9 in Las Vegas, about an hour after Lomachenko beat Rigondeaux. Mexico’s Salido (44-14-4, 31 KOs, 1 NC) edged Lomachenko by split decision in the two-time Olympic gold medalist’s second pro bout, a foul-filled fight in March 2014.
2023-10-20 04:58:23
