That at World Championship and Olympic Games level he was scored far fewer points against in 2008-2009 than in 2011-2012. Strangely enough 2008-2009 was the time he was still a featherweight. In 2011-2012 he fought as a lightweight. Does this mean that the opposition he fought at lightweigh in 2011-2012 was that much better than his featherweight days opposition? Or does this mean that featherweight was a better weight for him? Here's what I'm talking about: World Amateur Championships Results 2009 Defeated Mario Aleksic (Bosnia and Herzegovina) 16-2 Defeated Craig Evans (Wales) 15-1 Defeated Branimir Stankovic (Serbia) 8-2 Defeated Oscar Valdez (Mexico) 12-1 Defeated Sergey Vodopyanov (Russia) 12-1 2011 Defeated Lomalito Moala (Tonga) RSC 1 Defeated José Ramírez (USA) 16-9 Defeated Robson Conceicao (Brasil) 19-18 (originally lost 19-20 but decision was controversially overturned) Defeated Fazliddin Gaibnazarov (Uzbekistan) 18-10 Defeated Domenico Valentino (Italy) 17-11 Defeated Yasniel Toledo (Cuba) 17-12 Olympic Games Results 2008 Defeated Albert Selimov (Russia) 14-7 Defeated Bahodirjon Sooltonov (Uzbekistan) 13-1 Defeated Li Yang (China) 12-3 Defeated Yakup Kılıç (Turkey) 10-1 Defeated Khedafi Djelkhir (France) 9-1 RSC 1 2012 1st round bye Defeated Wellington Arias (Dominican Republic) 15-3 Defeated Félix Verdejo (Puerto Rico) 14-9 Defeated Yasniel Toledo (Cuba) 14-11 Defeated Han Soon-Chul (Republic of Korea) 19-9 Also, this: European Championships Results 2008 1st round bye Defeated Vladimir Nikiforov (Estonia) 10-0 Defeated David Oliver Joyce (Ireland) 10-2 Defeated Hicham Ziouti (France) 2-1 Defeated Araik Ambartsumov (Russia) 7-1 The above results were taken from Wikipedia.
Lightweight was never his natural weight, he only fought there because they got rid of the 57kg division. He was always outsized at 60kg. Still, he won every single fight he had at lightweight. He'll be a featherweight again as a pro. As someone who has followed him closely I noticed that his motivation to fight decreased when he was a lightweight, he treated it more as a training time for his pro career. Vasyl himself said that the scoring at London went against aggressive fighters so he fought just to get the points to win. You can see the difference in his reactions to winning gold in Beijing and London.
There's also the level of motivation- I'm not going to suggest Lomachenko didn't want to win these fights, but to me it looked like he knew he could win without showcasing like he did when he won the Val Barker. Vasyl's the kind of fighter that needs to be challenged. He was to the point of being able to simply go through the motions and win, and that's one of the surefire ways to stunt a fighter's development. That's a big reason he wants to start off tough in the pros as opposed to racking up 10-20 weaker wins before stepping up.
I started really paying attention to Lomachenko last year, one of the most coordinated, consistent, fast, skilled and focused boxers I've ever seen.
time will tell if this kid has the tools to really compete in the Pros. Its a whole different ball game there.
I had the olympics on my TV when Lomachenko was fighting and people who don't even like watch boxing gathered round and were amazed by Lomachenko, they could see he was a very special talent, it's very very rare you come across a fighter with that level of skill.
