Vasiliy Lomachenko took a dominant win against George Kambosos Jr live from RAC Arena in Perth, Australia on Saturday, May 11 (ET). Battling it out in the main event live on ESPN, the Ukrainian southpaw dropped and stopped the representative of the country-host to regain a world title.
Ukraine’s three-division world champion and future hall of famer twice sent Australia’s former unified lightweight champion to the canvas with body shots. The fight was stopped at 2 minutes and 49 seconds into the 11th round.
With the victory by TKO, Lomachenko improved to 18-3, 12 KOs and earned the vacant IBF lightweight belt. Earlier in his career, the Oxnard, California-based 36-year-old held the division’s unified WBC, WBO and WBA titles. He also rebounded from the defeat by unanimous decision against Devin Haney in his bid to land the undisputed 135-pound crown last May.
Sydney’s 30-year-old former unified WBA, WBO and IBF 135-pound champion Kambosos Jr dropped to 21-3, 10 KOs.
In the co-feature, Mexico’s Pedro Guevara (42-4-1, 22 KOs) defeated fellow-former world champion Andrew Moloney of Australia (26-4, 16 KOs) by split decision. With the victory, the 34-year-old landed the interim WBC junior bantamweight belt. The representative of the country-host wasn’t happy with the decision and announced his retirement. After 12 rounds, the scores were 115-113, 113-116, 115-113.
In the special feature, New Zealand-Australian former champion Cherneka Johnson (16-2, 6 KOs) took a controversial majority decision against British Nina Hughes (6-1, 2 KOs), who lost her WBA bantamweight title. Initially, the latter was declared the winner. The ring announcer then re-read the scores 95-95, 96-94 and 98-92 that went in favor of the local fighter.
Among other results, Sydney-based Imam Khataev (7-0, 7 KOs) stopped Ricards Bolotniks (20-8-1, 8 KOs) of Latvia at light heavyweight. The official time was 1:34 into the sixth round.
The local event date in Australia was Sunday, May 12 (AEST).
