LOMA LOST, STOP CRYING ABOUT IT.
I would like to first say congratulations to both Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko for putting on an enjoyable fight Saturday night, and hats off to Haney for being triumphant and keeping his undisputed standing.
If you read my prediction, you will know that I anticipated the fight to be a calculated chess match with no frills or thrills, and pretty average, but the fight did produce some aha moments. I figured the fight would always seem to be at the brink of becoming electrifying but never really get there due to Haney staying at the end of his longer jab, and throwing two punch combos all night. Well, I was slightly wrong.
This fight started off like I expected but turned into somewhat of a slugfest in the later rounds, once Haney stopped utilizing his jab, and Loma started heating up. Haney won, as I predicted, but what I didn’t predict was Loma turning the clock back a few years and becoming the dominate slickster that started teeing off at times, mainly with straight shots down the middle that consistently popped Haney’s head back.
The end scores were 115-113, 115-113, 116-112, all for Haney, which I can accept, other than the ridiculous 116-112 score where the judge had Haney winning round 10; this fight was a hard one to score due to so many swing rounds, but the 2 rounds that went to Loma, with no question, was rounds 10 and 11, so what that particular judge was doing during the 10th round, is beyond me, but I know what he wasn’t doing… Watching The Fight!!!
After the fight, many people on social media were screaming robbery because they felt Loma did enough to win, but it was a close one and could’ve gone either way. Some of the outrageous fans that called BS on the scores, would turn around and say that it should’ve been 115-113 for Loma, or at least a draw, which is confusing to me.
A 115-113 score is a one round difference, so if the fighter with 113 gets the nod for one more round, this would’ve been a score of 114-114, a draw, so how is it a robbery because the judges seen a couple rounds different than you in a fight that was extremely close? I understand the frustration with the 116-112, but the other two judges seen just a couple rounds different than the angry’s that can’t conceive how Haney won.
At the end of the day, the champ did enough to convince the judges and rightfully so; I’m from the old school, and we always knew that the contender had to convincingly beat the champ to take his belts, and Loma almost did it, but didn’t quite do it in the eyes of the judges. Loma started slow, like he usually does, and Haney capitalized on a lot of the earlier rounds, and once Loma got his engine revving, he made it an entertaining fight, but he obviously didn’t do enough. If he had a couple more rounds like the 10th and 11th, we would have a new undisputed lightweight champ.
Robberies are fights that are not close, but the battered victim gets the win anyways, usually because of political reasons, promoters protecting their star, the hometown hero getting special treatment, etc. but I don’t think this was the case.
If you want to be mad at the judge with the 116-112 score, by all means, GET HIM!! But the other two scores were solid and I believe the better man one in a very narrow window.
If I’m Haney, as soon as they talk about a rematch, I would excuse myself for a bathroom break, get in the hallway and make a beeline to my car and floor it!
