Vasiliy Lomachenko Opens Up On Teofimo Lopez Loss: “It’s About Being Bribed, There Was Nothing About Honest Judging”
By: Hans Themistode
After having time to dissect his unanimous decision loss at the hands of Teofimo Lopez roughly two months ago, former three-division world titlist Vasiliy Lomachenko is screaming robbery.
“If we counted strictly by the book, the scorecards would be different,” said Lomachenko on his social media page.
Lomachenko, 32, walked into his undisputed lightweight contest against Lopez (16-0, 12 KOs) as a decided favorite. From the moment the bell rang, the 23-year-old Lopez came straight ahead. Lomachenko though, took more of a defensive stance during the opening frame. What was thought to be a feel out round for the Ukrainian, turned into a passive effort during the first half of their contest.
While Lomachenko (14-2, 10 KOs) remained patient early on, connecting on 25 of his 58 total punches, Lopez continued to bank rounds as he scored on 53 of his 239 first-half shots. Falling behind on the judge’s scorecards is something that Lomachenko agrees with but after watching the tape closely, he believes he did more than enough in the second half.
“I took one round for the first half of the fight and five rounds for the second one, namely rounds 7-11. We’ve got 6-6 which is a draw. If it’s a draw we use the unspoken rule of boxing, we look for rounds 10-12. I won two of them. It’s two to one.”
The numbers for Lomachenko did in fact spike up during the second half as he tagged Lopez with 116 shots while throwing 263. With that being said, the change in his aggression still fell short when compared to his younger opponent. Lopez eked by Lomachenko in terms of punches landed with 130 and he nearly doubled him up in the second half with 420 total punches thrown.
Lopez seemed to punctuate his performance in the final round as he landed 50 total shots on Lomachenko, a career-high for punches landed on the Ukrainian native.
Still, most pundits are in agreement that Lomachenko did in fact win the second half of their contest. However, the hole he dug during the first half proved to be too much as Lopez went on to become the youngest undisputed world champion in boxing history.
Bad judging is something that Lomachenko can reluctantly live with. Nevertheless, the former two time Olympic gold medalist doesn’t believe the judges accidentally handed in bad scorecards. In this case, Lomachenko assumes that there could have been money exchanged underneath the table.
“They knew that the possibility of a knockout from my side was around 20%. What does it say? It’s about being bribed. There was nothing about honest judging.”