Vasiliy Lomachenko is set to resume his career.
The famed Ukrainian southpaw touched down in Los Angeles on Tuesday to begin training camp for a planned fight in the fall. BoxingScene.com has since learned that Ukraine’s Lomachenko now has a date and opponent for the event, as he will face budding lightweight contender Jamaine Ortiz. The bout will headline an October 22 show on an ESPN platform from a U.S. location to be determined.
ESPN.com boxing insider Mike Coppinger was the first to report the development.
The fight will be the first for Lomachenko (16-2, 11KOs) since a win over former lightweight titlist Richard Commey last December. The two-time Olympic Gold medalist and three-division titlist was poised to next face then-unbeaten lineal and unified lightweight champion George Kambosos Jr. in April. The agreed-upon fight was scrapped, however, due to the start of the ongoing Russo-Ukraine war, as Lomachenko joined the Belgorod-Dnestrovsky Territorial Defense Battalion in compliance with Ukraine martial law.
Kambosos went on to instead face Devin Haney (28-0, 15KOs), who soundly outpointed the Aussie on his home soil this past June in Melbourne, Australia. The two are due to meet again October 15, with Lomachenko fighting one week later and keen on facing the winner for his first fight of 2023.
“I’ve prepared for this moment, and I need this chance,” Lomachenko said upon his U.S. arrival on Tuesday. “I need this fight… undisputed. Undisputed world champion.”
He will first have to get past Ortiz (16-0-1, 8KOs), who is on a nice roll.
The 26-year-old rising contender from Worcester, Massachusetts is coming off a career-best, ten-round win over former WBO junior lightweight titlist Jamel Herring this past May 21 on ESPN from Resorts World Las Vegas. Three months prior, Ortiz outboxed and outfought Nahir Albright over ten rounds in their February 18 Showtime ShoBox main event from Caribe Royale in Orlando, Florida.
Lomachenko has previously held titles at featherweight, junior lightweight and lightweight.
The latter reign began with an off-the-canvas, tenth-round stoppage of Jorge Linares to claim the WBA lightweight title in May 2018. Lomachenko then added the WBO title in a points win over Jose Pedraza later that December, followed by a twelve-round decision victory over England’s Luke Campbell to claim the vacant WBC title in their August 2019 clash on the road in London.
The win was his last before the pandemic, coming back on the other side with a bitter twelve-round defeat to Teofimo Lopez in their October 2020 WBA/IBF/WBO/WBC “Franchise” championship clash in Las Vegas. Lomachenko has since bounced back with a stoppage win over top-ten contender Masayoshi Nakatani last June and his decisive points win over Commey on December 11 at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox