When people say 18-3 to discredit Lomachenko

SAD!

 

As stated above, his record is 18-3, 21 fights, 17 of which have been championship bouts. No one in boxing comes close to this. We know what happened with Salido, the low blows, the excessive weight. Haney and Lopez were probably 12 pounds heavier than he was at the time of the fight. YOU are a perfect illustration of people who are unwilling to acknowledge greatness in fighters from Eastern Europe. His amateur record is unmatched.

 

lomachenko lost to lopez fair and square.
the haney and salido matches are hotly debated.
two olympic gold medals, champion in three weight classes.
often giving up size advantage to his opponents.

all time great? i don't know.
what i do know is after he hangs up his gloves we can reflect on his career and discuss it here in great depth.

 

"No one in boxing comes close to this"

This is what I mean. Total blindness & factually wrong. Care to take a look at Canelo's or Inoue's resume? Terence Crawford is 18-0 in championship fights. There's also this other fighter from Ukraine who has a better resume than Loma. ...

Excuses for all three Loma losses, of course. And trying to weasel in his AM record in a discussion of his professional career. This type of reasoning is exactly what I'm referring to. Completely irrational.

 

He should have never fought Lopez with a bad arm. He should have fought Salido smarter. We all know he could have boxed circles around him, yet he chose to fight. I personally don't view the Haney fight a robbery. For me, it was a closely contested match. That being said, if he had made some wiser decisions, he could very well be undefeated.

 

I stand by my original statement. Lomachenko is one of the best fighters I have ever seen in the ring. He outclasses everyone except weight bullies who are 10% bigger come fight night. He had a string of fights against top tier fighters who quit, literally quit. Didn't get off their stool. Didn't want anymore. Walters, who was KO'g everyone, said enough. Rigo quit. Go back and look at his record, who he fought, in succession. The guy is otherworldly. https://boxrec.com/en/box-pro/659771

 

I know LOD isn't obtuse, so going to guess he's just intentionally not "getting it" here.

When some of us say that Loma's run is unique, we're talking about the aspect where he basically hit the ground running facing world class opposition and has barely let up. Yes people have gone on twenty or so fight runs that are maybe superior to his - but that isn't the point that's being made, and you know it. Those people also had a leg of their career where they were built up and fed nobodies before they reached that point. Loma bypassed that, and was boxing for a world championship on his second assignment. That in and of itself - pretty rare. The fact that his only non world class opposition since debuting has been Rodríguez and Koasicha is pretty damn remarkable.

The only real comparison you can draw to a contemporary peer is Naoya Inoue - debuted a year before Lomachenko, and has fought seven more times, and remains undefeated, and has a bit more p4p quality in his résumé overall. But even Inoue didn't quite do it the way Loma did. His debut opponent was Crison Omayao - a tough upper grade Filipino journeyman and much better than a normal pro debut opponent, but not as good as José Luis Ramírez. Inoue has also faced a lot more than just two guys who aren't really elite or close to it. Pretty much all his Thai or Mexican opponents (up through Nery). So proportionately, Lomachenko still has a higher percentage than Inoue of world class opponents faced professionally - 19 of 21 is good for 90.4%, you're not going to find better. Guys with upwards of twenty victories in world championship bouts? Yeah, a few - but that'll be much less than 90% of their sum pedigree.

And my opinion is probably the only unvarnished down-the-middle one you can find on Lomachenko - never been part of his nut-licker army, nor a hater. It used to annoy me that people called him better than Usyk pound for pound (and I was alone in saying it was vice-versa, for a solid length of time before Usyk even left cruiser ...a few people might have said they were about equal, but not a soul backed me up back then on Usyk being the more skilled and greater boxer), otherwise I have no special emotional response for or against him. Just respect for his ring craft, and the steady diet of respectable contenders he thus far has fought with, again, just two exceptions.

 

Ok then I guess that accusing you of white nationalism is about as intelligent as using 18-3 to discredit Loma. Sorry. Still I mean come on, making a whole thread to respond to stupid stuff.

 

I mostly judge fighters based on their championship record. 14-3 is excellent. There are may current champs that only have had 3-4 championship fights. I'll have to go back through their records to see how I rate them. Lomachenko was over-rated initially, now I find him under-rated.

 

He is clearly NOT an atg. I dont know why you say that.

On the other hand, 18-3 is just a fact. Emotional people have problems with facts, but that's not my problem.

 

I certainly agree that Loma had a rare, very auspicious beginning to his career. He's also one of history's very few fighters who would be offered a title shot with a 1-1 record. But from 2014-20, it was clear to me that he was a top 5 pfp fighter. I think he will and deserves to be remembered as a great fighter.

In my view, GRJ remains his best victory even tho that win has not aged as well as it should have because GRJ devolved into such a waste of talent. At the time I thought it might be a Jones/Hopkins situation where they're both a little green, with the winner to become PfP top 3 and a potential ATG while the loser ascends to top 10 PfP status. GRJ blew it.

Where I draw a distinction between Loma as a great fighter and recent ATGs is this: Generally an ATG will have sustained success that peaks in a crescendo of excellence. Such was the case for Mayweather & Pacquaio, and currently with Usyk and Crawford. Inoue is still going, while Canelo makes ATG status for me given his ability to win big at multiple weights and to change his style along the way.

Loma, meanwhile, has plateaued somewhat. For one thing I disagree with your 90% number. Just as one example, I would not consider Rigo world class at 130. Literally all of Rigo's good work was at 118-122; he was a nullity at 126, much less at 130. Can't get on board with Marriaga as world class, either.

I don't like to evaluate fighters based on losses; I mostly grade them on their wins. The losses are significant as missed opportunities, and yes in ATG discussions an utterly dominant fighter would get the edge over someone with similar wins but a couple of nicks along the way. Still, the Salido fight means nothing to me so I am not an "18-3" simpleton hater. Obviously the Haney bout was quite controversial.

For perspective, this is coming from someone who thinks Felix Trinidad was great, but not an ATG. So I might be using a tighter screen than most people, but my issue with Trinidad is similar and of course he did not start out of the gates as Loma did.

I'm not a Loma hater, just someone who has called out his irrational fans -- exhibited here in this very thread -- for wishing him to be something he is not.

 

Loma is a superb boxer but massively overrated on this forum

He didn't lose to haney, but he would have more losses if he was fighting the like of marquez, pacquiao and Floyd, had he been around in that sort of era