How About A Rigondeaux-Lomachenko Clash?

So Vasyl Lomachenko picked up a load more fans, more fans than maybe any 3-1 professional has ever had, on Saturday night in Macau.

(OK, apart from Zou Shiming, he has numbers on his side, and probably had more rooters following his arc when he had four pro fights under his belt.)

But the interest in Ukrainian Lomachenko is real, and so is the buzz surrounding who he’ll fight next. He got a UD12 over Thailander Chonlatarn Piriyipino underneath the Pacquiao-Algieri clash.

I myself like the idea of Guillermo Rigondeaux and Loma getting it on, a clash of Olympians, two technical wizards.

Rigo manager Gary Hyde talked about that pairing. “Rigo did his thing against the pound for pound number three, the fighter of the year, Nonito Donaire, and Rigo’s performance in April 2013 made Lomachenko’s performance look like an average spar,” Hyde told me. “If Lomachenko was as effective as Rigo, he would have had that oppnent tonight out of there in one round, just as Rigo did with Sod Kokietgym in July!”

“And if the Rigo-Loma fight gets made, Rigo hurts Lomachenko badly on the way to a KO win,” Hyde continued. “Lomachenko weighed 125 in one of his previous fights, and we can do a 124 pound ctachweight, and we will show who has made the transition from amateur to pro!”

What about it, Loma manager Egis Klimas? You like the idea of a Loma-Rigo faceoff?  “Rigo is 122,” Klimas told me. “He will come up to 126 pounds, we can talk about fighting him.”

So, what about the catchweight concept? “No catchweight,” Klimas declared.

Update: Klimas gave me the scoop on Loma’s hand injury. “In the sixth round, he hit his left hand hard, and was in a lot of pain,” Klimas told me. “It is not broken. We did an x-ray, it was just swollen. he will be OK.”

WATCH RELATED VIDEOS ON BOXINGCHANNEL.TV