With the Paulie Malignaggi sparring fallout still fresh in everyone’s minds, a new elite boxer is offering to step up and spar with Conor McGregor ahead of his August 26th fight with Floyd Mayweather — Vasyl Lomachenko. “Hi-Tech” is one of the best boxers in the world right now, he has the speed of a prime Floyd Mayweather, the showboating (and power for a small guy) of Ali, and he gets creative with how he goads people on, kind of like Anderson Silva (see: Stephan Bonnar fight and so many others).
The two-time Olympic boxing gold medalist and WBO Super Featherweight champion may only be 9-1, but he has a 396-1 career amateur record and he’s avenged that loss (twice). The 29-year-old is entering his prime, and he can help Conor get ready. At least in theory.
. @TheNotoriousMMA need another sparring partner to test your skills against? 📞……………….
— LOMA (@VasylLomachenko) August 8, 2017
At this point, you have to think Lomachenko is looking for some easy cash between fights, and sparring McGregor would likely provide that. Lomachenko is slightly smaller than Mayweather, but he could replicate the swiftness of “Money” with no problem, even if that’s not really his style. He’s also a southpaw, but could easily replicate an orthodox fighter in training if he had to.
So in other words, this is just an attention grab, but if he came into McGregor’s camp for even a day or two, he might be able to sharpen McGregor up at least a little bit. Lomachenko sparred with former UFC bantamweight champ TJ Dillashaw and we’ve seen his striking, at least in MMA, improve by leaps and bounds (thanks, Duane Ludwig). boxing’s a whole other beast, we know. And Lomachenko has already made his thoughts known on how this fight with Mayweather will play out:
So if this leads to something, cool. If it doesn’t, cool. Now it’s time to watch some amazing highlights of Lamachenko, who they call “The Matrix” for a reason:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxbgsjBlFh8
