Boxing: Lightweight world champion: Lomatschenko makes boxing history

Ukrainian Vasil Lomatschenko is the new WBA heavyweight champion of the world. For many of the best pound-for-pound boxers in the world, he defeated the previous title holder Jorge Linares from Venezuela by a technical knockout in the tenth round – and made boxing history.

In his twelfth professional fight, 30-year-old Lomatschenko has already won a World Championship belt in the third weight category (featherweight, super featherweight and lightweight) – that is a lonely record. The Australian Jeff Fenech had done the same trick in his 20th professional fight in 1988.

Lomatschenko struggled against Linares in a gripping fight at the beginning and even had to take to the boards after a jab in the sixth round. But he recovered quickly and sent his opponent to the ground with a liver hook in round ten. Linares did not recover from this, the fight was stopped.

“It was a great fight. The right[which sent me to the ground] was a good shot, something like that happens,” said two-time Olympic champion Lomatschenko afterwards. He explained that he wanted to remain lightweight in the future as well. A possible opponent for his next fight is WBO champion Raymundo Beltran from Mexico.