Vasiliy Lomachenko Turns in a Vintage Performance at Madison Square Garden

What do Vasiliy Lomachenko and the Heisman Trophy awards ceremony have in common? Top Rank promoter Bob Arum likes to conjoin them. On three occasions, including tonight, Arum featured Lomachenko at his post-Heisman party.

Lomachenko forced Guillermo Rigondeaux to quit on his stool in 2017. The following year, he came back here to Madison Square Garden on the second Saturday of December and took the measure of Jose Pedraza and this year he was back once again, matched against Richard Commey with the Heisman ceremony as the lead-in on ESPN. (Because of the COVID situation, last year’s award ceremony was pushed into January with all the finalists appearing remotely via satellite. The big room at MSG was closed.)

On a card splattered with showcase fights for hot prospects (translation mismatches), Loma turned in a vintage performance, advancing his record to 16-2 (11) as a pro after an amateur career that was off the charts. Throwing volleys of unanswered punches from assorted angles, the 33-year-old Ukrainian won a lopsided 12-round decision, prevailing by scores of 117-110 and 119-108 twice.

Loma had a big seventh round, hurting Commey (30-4) with a flurry of punches climaxed with a short left hook that knocked the Ghanian to the canvas. Commey barely survived the round, but soldiered on and actually had some of his best moments in the next two rounds. To his credit, he lasted the full 12 but the decision was a mere formality. Lomachenko now has his sights set on unifying the 135-pound weight class which is loaded with talent at the top.

ESPN Prelims

Toledo’s 22-year-old Jared Anderson, the “next big thing” in the heavyweight division, improved to 11-0 with his 11^th straight knockout, stopping Oleksandr Teslenko, a Canadian by way of Ukraine, at the 1:33 mark of the second round.

Anderson, who swaggered into the ring in a snow white costume embellished with a walking cane, sent Teslenko (17-2) to the canvas with a left-right-left combination. The second punch was the hardest punch in the sequence.  Teslenko arose on spaghetti legs and the bout was waived off.

Keyshawn Davis, considered the best of the U.S. Olympic contingent in Tokyo, and an eventual silver medalist, advanced to 4-0 (3) with an impressive second-round stoppage of Sedalia, Missouri’s Jose Zaragoza (8-4-1).

In the second round, Davis sent Zaragoza face-first to the canvas with a flurry of punches. He beat the count, only to be dropped again by a wicked left hook to the liver that sank him like a sack of flour. He rose right at “10,” but the referee wisely waived it off. Zaragoza hadn’t previously been stopped.

In the TV opener on the ESPN main channel, middleweight Nico Ali Walsh, the grandson of Muhammad Ali, scored a majority decision over spunky Reyes Sanchez from Topeka, Kansas.

Ali Walsh, who improved to 3-0, hurt Sanchez late in the second round with a roundhouse right to the ear, but Sanchez came out aggressively in the next frame and clearly won the round (save in the eyes of myopic judge James Kinney). In the end, the right guy one, but Ali Walsh showed that he’s a long way away from competing successfully against a capable opponent. Sanchez was 6-0 coming in, but his opponents were a combined 4-21.

Other Bouts

Xander Zayas, the 19-year-old Puerto Rican phenom from Sunrise, Florida, wasted no time taking apart Italy’s Alessio Mastronunzio who came a long away to get pummeled. Zayas dropped the overmatched Italian 11 seconds into the fight and kept up the pressure until the referee called off the carnage with eight seconds remaining in the opening round. Zayas, who has yet to lose a round, improved to 12-0 (9). Mastronunzio fell to 9-2 and can tell his grandkids that he fought at Madison Square Garden.

Junior welterweight John Bauza, a 22-year-old New Jerseyite of Puerto Rican extraction, breezed to a fourth-round stoppage of North Carolina’s Michael Williams, who entered the contest 19-0 but with only two wins over opponents with winning records. Bauza had Williams on the canvas 30 seconds into the opening round and five times overall before the bout was stopped in the fourth round.

Twenty-eight-year-old Irish light heavyweight Joe Ward put away Britton Norwood (10-4-1) in 95 seconds. It was the sixth straight win for Ward, a decorated amateur, who lost his pro debut to a freak injury when his knee gave out.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank via Getty images

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