“Lomachenko had to listen to his father”

The Vice President of the Ukrainian Professional Boxing League, Alina Shaternikova, shared her opinion about the injury of the Ukrainian Vasily Lomachenko (14-2, 10 KOs) before the fight for the title of absolute world lightweight champion against Teofimo López ( 16-0, 12 KOs).

– Can a shoulder injury be an excuse for Lomachenko’s defeat?

– I would not speak of such a concept as an excuse, I would speak of a factor that could play not in favor of Vasily’s ability, not in favor of his victory. Most of his life he has been working on the brink of possibility due to physical exertion. The fact that his physiological resources and his body began to fail, suggests that he was preparing 100% for the fight with Lopez. But when the dream of your whole life can come true in 6 weeks, then at this stage, telling yourself “stop, you must postpone” is very difficult. It is very difficult to decide to postpone the battle. I understand why you disagreed with your father’s opinion. I was thirsty and dreaming of becoming an absolute champion, but here they tell you: “Wait a bit, you need to heal your shoulder.” And you understand that this dream is being delayed for you, and Lomachenko did not agree with this. If we leave the emotions, then, probably, it was necessary to listen to the opinion of the father. But we are all human and we make mistakes, Lomachenko makes them too. Occurred. Now the main thing is that your body and all your physiology are completely restored, rested. To restore even minor annoyances in the right direction. And then we’ll see how the revenge negotiations go. It seems to me that given the good television performance in the United States, and that the entire world boxing community would like to see revenge, they will try to organize a fight.

– Will the history of the injury help Lomachenko get revenge?

– Hard to say. Here the authority and the desire of all parties to take revenge will play an important role. This is the Lomachenko team’s insistence on the rematch and the Lopez team’s correct belief that they can get their dividends from another fight as well.

Recall that on the night of October 17-18, Lomachenko lost to Lopez by unanimous decision and lost his WBA, WBC, WBO belts in the lightweight division.