The MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland is supposed to be a place of chance, across the river from a town in which all the endings are predictable. The House always wins.
Last night was no different, but a thrill emerged.
Vasyl Lomachenko (8-0-1. 6 KO) beat up Jason Sosa (20-2-4, 15 KO, just as we knew he would.
Jason Sosa was never going to give Vasyl Lomachenko a challenge. Instead, we got to see an apex predator play with its food. I’ve used that phrase about Terence Crawford. For the very best fighters, there are not challenges. They are so goddamn good that until they become old or meet their equal, they’re boring.
Roy Jones was boring. Floyd Mayweather was boring. Pernell Whitaker was boring.
Vasyl Lomachenko is becoming boring. I’m supposed to nut over his footwork and balance, which is sublime, but I won’t. He’s a beautiful thing to see. But he is boring me.
But too many moments in a Lomachenko fight make you scream “Just end it!”
Vasyl Lomachenko spent 9 rounds torturing, undressing, and beating up Jason Sosa. The only question in my mind is why did he wait so long? To watch a Lomachenko fight is to view a vivisection. Having performed that procedure, there’s nothing fun there.
Oleksandr Gvozdyk (13-0, 11 KO) is just as balanced, similarly accomplished, and supposedly of a like mind. But the light heavyweight possessed a predatory zeal that his countrymen seem to lack. When he hurt Yunieski Gonzalez (18-3, 14 KO) in the 3rd round of their fight, he pounced. He was patient. He was balanced. But he ended the show. My notes read: “Gvozdyk is a goddamn monster.” He won the first two rounds easily and then committed a hate crime in the third, before Gonzalez corner did the right thing by throwing in the towel. Referee Harvey Dock should’ve stopped the fight by then.
Adonis Stevenson has another fighter to duck shamelessly.
The opening bout saw cruiserweight Oleksandr Usyk (12-0, 10 KO) go twelve rounds with Michael Hunter (12-1, 8 KO). I scored it 117-110 for Usyk, as did the judges.
