10 best wins of Vasiliy Lomachenko’s career

Having failed to beat Saensak Muangsurin’s record for winning a world title in the fewest fights, Lomachenko got a chance to equal the feat three months later. Previous WBO featherweight champion Orlando Salido had given Lomachenko an ingracious welcome to darker side of professional boxing, taking a split decision after a foul-filled 12-rounder for which the Mexican had purposely come in heavy. Missing the weight meant surrendering the title, so Lomachenko was then granted a shot at the vacant belt, against 24-0 American co-challenger Gary Russell Jr.

It was an entirely different task, with Russell renowned for his fast hands and flashy skills. For anyone else, his skillset posed a near-unbeatable quandary, but Lomachenko was more at home here than he had been against the deliberately dirty veteran Salido.

As fast and as flashy as Russell could be, Lomachenko was faster and flashier, and this time made light of the professional experience differential, finishing the fight the stronger of the two. Russell missed with almost 90% of his punches (landing 83 of 106 thrown) as Lomachenko took the win, and the title, by majority decision. 

Russell would go on to rack up a seven-year run as WBC 126lbs champion.

If a fight between a boxer with a 51-1 record and one who is 2-1 sounds like a mismatch, that’s precisely what it was – in “novice” Lomachenko’s favour.

Boxing in chief support to Manny Pacquiao-Chris Algieri in Macau as Top Rank showcased their increasingly international stable, Lomachenko dominated the veteran Thai as he made the first defence of his WBO featherweight title.

Admittedly, Chonlatarn’s record was inflated, but his toughness and conditioning were expected to ask some questions of Lomachenko. In the event, he was thrashed, clearly losing every round as Lomachenko bamboozled him with angles and combinations and dropped him in the fourth.

He would surely have been stopped if not for Lomachenko suffering a left-hand injury in round six. Even then, Chonlatarn could do precious little with him, landing 86 punches over the 12 rounds.

After matching Saensak’s record for a first world title, Lomachenko broke Naoya Inoue’s for the fewest fights to be crowned in two divisions.

In Martinez, he was meeting a three-time WBO super-featherweight holder, and a man who’d beaten Salido. Typically, Lomachenko was favoured to win, but it was thought the Puerto Rican would at least test him.

He would do nothing of the sort. Lomachenko unfurled his full repertoire of bedazzling defensive reflexes, hair-trigger combination punching and disappearing-act movement through the early rounds, and then added an explosive right-hook coup de grace that showed he had carried his power up to 130lbs, if not added to it, and left Martinez utterly unable to beat the count.

While Lomachenko waited for a rematch with Salido that would never come, he made a first defence of his new title against unbeaten Jamaican puncher Walters.

Though Walters had been held to a draw in his previous contest, against Jason Sosa, that was widely considered a duff decision in a bout most saw Walters winning handily. A much better indication of his form and threat had come in an impressive 2014 KO of a Nonito Donaire still near the peak of his considerable powers. Walters, then, was seen as having a puncher’s chance at the very least.

But a puncher’s chance requires one to land punches, and Walters became the latest Lomachenko foe to find himself being punished in return for repeatedly swiping at thin air. He landed just 49 blows, leaving him so demoralised that he not only offered his verbal surrender upon the conclusion of round seven but would also not fight again for more than six years.

The Walters win was the first of a four-fight run in which Lomachenko forced each opponent to quit. When Rigondeaux did so, it came as a surprise. Though the smaller man, having to that point reigned as WBA and WBO 122lbs champion, the Cuban was regarded as one of the finest technicians in the sport, and his clash with Lomachenko was a professional meeting between two of the greatest amateurs of all time.

Indeed, it was the first time two double Olympic gold medallists had fought in a pro ring. It was expected to be a pugilistic chess match of the highest order.

Again, though, Lomachenko dominated. Rigondeaux couldn’t work out an opponent who was, in many ways, a stylistic mirror image of himself, and found the combination of being unable to land punches while being hit almost at will an unbearable experience. He resorted to spoiling and holding before bailing out after six, citing a hand injury.

Afterwards, referring to his streak of retirement wins, Vasiliy quipped that his surname should be changed to ‘No Mas Chenko’.

Not even ‘The Matrix’ can dodge all bullets. Moving up to lightweight, Lomachenko took on Venezuela’s WBA and linear champion Jorge Linares, who was the bigger man and a renowned puncher. While Lomachenko had previously made mockeries of glowing reputations, on this occasion he found Linares lived up to his billing – and he even found himself on the floor at one point.

The sight of Lomachenko on the seat of his pants in round six was striking, even if it only lasted for a second. It was unprecedented – and has never been repeated – and came courtesy of a thudding right-hand counter he had uncharacteristically walked on to.

After years of dominance, Lomachenko found himself in a fight that was dead-level after nine rounds. And then he proved he was not just a front-runner, turning things in his favour as Linares grew increasingly ragged, and then ending the fight with a whipping body-shot knockout.

It secured a third world title for Lomachenko and broke another record, as he became the fastest three-weight king in history, after 12 fights.

Lomachenko’s first British opponent found him in the mood for an uncharacteristically fast start.

Crolla, though a former holder of this same WBA lightweight title (Lomachenko by now had also added the WBO version), came in at odds as long as 100/1 for some bookmakers. Naturally, he vowed to spring the upset, but was disabused of the delusion in short order.

After a fact-finding first round, Lomachenko set about the Mancunian with spite thereafter, hurting him in the second, forcing a count in the third, and knocking him out in the fourth with a right hook that put Crolla down on his face. The challenger had landed just 12 punches.

Lomachenko next ventured to the UK to headline a PPV. Fans turned out more to witness a modern great performing on their shores more than in realistic hope of a famous British victory. In Campbell, he was meeting a fellow former Olympic champion, but as professionals there appeared a gulf between the two, with Lomachenko posted as a 1/18 favourite. 

In the event, Campbell put in a decent effort, especially early, as he employed his height and reach advantages to pick Lomachenko off on occasion. But, as we had seen so many times before, the longer the fight went, the more comfortable Lomachenko grew.

He was in firm control after five rounds, dropped Campbell in the 11th, and took a wide 119-108 (x2), 118-109 decision. The vacant WBC title was on the line, meaning Lomachenko now held three of the four major lightweight belts.

Two years later, Lomachenko was in the unfamiliar position of rebuilding from a defeat, having lost to Teofimo Lopez in an astounding upset in October 2020. The scores had been wide in Lopez’s favour – who ever imagined Lomachenko losing a unanimous decision? – but it was subsequently revealed that Lomachenko had carried a shoulder injury into the fight.

A meeting between Lomachenko and Commey had first been talked of in 2019 in what would have been an undisputed title fight, the Ghanaian then holding the IBF lightweight belt. Since then, both had lost to Lopez, making this contest a de facto eliminator.

After shoulder surgery, Lomachenko had returned to form in his previous bout, battering Masayoshi Nakatani, and continued that momentum against Commey.

Already well out of his depth, Commey was dropped heavily in round seven by a left hook and Lomachenko implored his corner to stop the fight. He did so again when Commey’s legs buckled alarmingly under a follow-up attack. When they refused to do so, Lomachenko, out of respect for his outgunned opponent’s gallantry, seemingly made a conscious decision to allow him to see out the 12 rounds.

Lomachenko then called for a shot at new lightweight champion George Kambosos Jr, who two weeks earlier had upset Lopez. But before any such fight could be arranged, Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, prompting him to return home and join the war effort.

In what turned out to be his last fight, Lomachenko and Kambosos would finally meet more than two years later. Both had since lost to Devin Haney – Lomachenko controversially; Kambosos less so (and twice) – but were paired in a vacant IBF 130lbs title fight in Perth, Australia, following Haney’s move up to super-lightweight.

Lomachenko was by now 36 and had been sporadically active in recent years, but if Kambosos thought he’d timed this right, he was sorely mistaken. In familiar scenes, Lomachenko built a wide points lead, his strategic superiority increasing as the fight deepened, until Kambosos was ripe for a late-rounds finish. Left hooks to the body twice dropped Kambosos, who’d averaged fewer than four landed punches per round, in the 11th, prompting his corner to throw in the towel.

While Lomachenko did not know at the time that this would be his swansong – taking more than a year to consider his future – it proved the perfect end-note to a great career.