Briton makes Lomachenko work for his glory
The world’s leading technical boxer, Vasyl Lomachenko, retained his WBA and WBO lightweight belts and claimed the vacant WBC strap here in a compelling, pulsating contest with Britain’s Luke Campbell last night.
The master boxer from Ukraine was brilliant, but Campbell himself was magnificent, the visiting fighter taking the championship 119-108 on two of the cards and on the third 118-109.
Written off in all quarters, badly hurt at the end of the fifth and down in the eleventh, Campbell showed with precision and effort why he was once the most decorated amateur in British boxing history.
Not since the Olympics in 2012, had a British crowd cheered so loudly for an overseas fighter as “Loma” made his way to the ring. Wladimir Klitschko was here, Oleksandr Usyk here too; both world champion Ukrainians applauding just as loudly.
It was cagey for the first two minutes, as the two brilliant boxers shadow danced, before Campbell landed the first blows and took the opening round. Lomachenko nodded in appreciation.
Another excellent round from the Hull fighter, taking centre ring, saw him secure the second round, but the champion was just beginning to edge into range, landing two attacks of his own; finding his groove.
In the third, the bobbing, weaving Ukrainian rocked back the head of the challenger with a powerful left, as the fight became a tussle for ascendancy.
Yet Campbell kept up a ferocious pace, as Lomachenko stepped up his attacks in the fourth, the fight a brilliant technical battle to witness, as the main known as “The Matrix” stepped up the body attacks. They told in the fifth, as first a left hook to the chin and then more assaults to the Briton’s torso brought agony to his face, before the bell sent him back to his corner.
Never physically broken, yet surely mentally fatigued, Campbell threw more obdurate salvoes in the sixth, but faced another punishing assault at the end of the seventh. And what a thrilling round, as first “Cool Hand Luke” then “Loma” attacked viciously.
Thus they continued into the eighth, somehow Campbell staying in the fight by sheer will. In the eleventh the Briton was down from a left to the body and a short straight right, counted by referee Victor Laughlin.
In the end, this was the third defeat on the 23-fight record of Campbell, but by a long way his most impressive boxing performance against the No1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world, hugely entertaining from both Olympic champions from London 2012, both southpaws, both, at 31, at the peak of their powers.
Earlier, Charlie Edwards’s second defence of the World Boxing Council flyweight title ended in controversy with a “No Contest” declared after the champion was hurt and went to the ground after a ferocious body assault in the third round by the challenger Julio Cesar Martinez Aguilar of Mexico. Referee Mark Lyson counted Edwards out and called the fight over. However, the television replay showed clearly that the defending champion, from Croydon, had been punched to the ribs when he was on his knees.
The O2 crowd went into uproar as the replay played on giant screens and Edwards’s trainer Grant Smith remonstrated with officials as promoter Eddie Hearn mouthed that it was a disgrace.
“He did hurt me, but that’s why I took the knee, but he did hit me when I was down,” said Edwards as he was interviewed in the ring while the Mexican and his team celebrated. But that was to change within a few minutes.
Mauricio Sulaiman, the president of the WBC was interviewed, revealing that the fight had been unfairly finished.
“I truly believe in instant replay. The kid was hit while he was down,” ruled Sulaiman. “It was an accident. There’ll be an immediate rematch. The WBC has an instant replay rule and this fight will be ruled a no-contest.”
With the main event defying the bookies who predicted a no-contest of another type, we must be grateful for the bravery and skill of Lomachenko’s opponent. Few, if any, overseas fighters have ever been cheered in victory over a Briton, as long and loud as “Loma” was in his triumph over “Cool Hand Luke”.