Angry Lomachenko staff to enchantment ‘biggest robbery’ after Haney loss
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asyl Lomachenko’s staff have confirmed their intention to enchantment and protest in opposition to his controversial factors defeat by Devin Haney.
Lomachenko’s supervisor Egis Klimas was left livid by his fighter’s unanimous decision loss in a closely-contested undisputed light-weight title battle in Las Vegas on Saturday evening.
Despite getting into the bout as a transparent underdog in opposition to the larger, taller and extra highly effective defending champion, the Ukrainian nonetheless nice delivered a terrific efficiency in an engrossing tactical battle in entrance of a closely pro-Lomachenko crowd on the MGM Grand Garden Arena, making life extraordinarily tough for Haney all through.
Lomachenko arguably outworked his rival, touchdown extra punches and positively the extra eye-catching pictures, hurting Haney in spherical 11. However, the American crucially closed out sturdy to edge two scorecards 115-113, with the opposite choose at ringside scoring the battle 116-112 in Haney’s favour.
The outcome was met with heavy boos from the viewers contained in the venue, with different light-weight contenders corresponding to Shakur Stevenson and Ryan Garcia amongst these boxers to publicly state that they believed that Lomachenko had gained the competition.
It is a view actually shared by Lomachenko’s supervisor Klimas, who instructed a post-fight press convention: “I’m going to say it just like it is – this is the biggest robbery in the middle of the day.
“For the other team, Christmas came in the summer. We are not going to let it go. I guarantee we are going to protest, I guarantee we are going to appeal that decision.
“Because somebody needs to end this injustice. Somebody needs to put boxing in the place where it has to be. It has to be justice.
“Those judges, when they scored their completely insane scores, they do not understand how the fighters are working hard. Being robbed like that? It’s not acceptable.
“I guarantee we are not going to let it go, we are going to go all the way to the end to appeal. Maybe we are not going to win, most likely it is going to be as it is, but we want to show that there has to be justice.”
An emotional Lomachenko broke down in tears backstage after his third profession loss, explaining that he had considered his younger son’s disappointment.
“I controlled the fight,” he lamented to reporters. “All fight I understand that I was winning the fight. So for me it’s a big surprise. 12 rounds and I was sure I won this fight. But it is what it is.
“I controlled every round. It is a big, big question what happened in the result today.”
Haney, in the meantime, was satisfied that his gameplan to repeatedly goal the physique of Lomachenko from the outset delivered him a deserved victory as he stayed undefeated and moved to 30-0 as knowledgeable.
“The body work is what won me the fight tonight,” he stated. “I knew that I had to invest in that body. We watched a lot of tape on Loma and we knew that he wasn’t the biggest fan of body shots, so I stuck to the gameplan.
“It was breaking him down. I felt like he was fighting in spurts. He would have some good moments during the round, but he wasn’t finishing the round strong. I was definitely confident that I won the fight.
“I knew that it was a close fight, of course he won rounds. I knew it wouldn’t be an easy fight. I had to go through the fire to win.”