Saturday night at the Hulu Theater in New York?s Madison Square Garden, in a fight televised live on ESPN, WBA lightweight champion Vasiliy Lomachenko (12-1, 9 KOs), the southpaw savant from Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, Ukraine, outclassed WBO lightweight champion Jose Pedraza (25-2, 12 KOs), from Caguas, Puerto Rico, over 12 tactical rounds to unify two of the 135-pound titles.
The final scores were 119-107 (Tom Schreck) and 117-109 twice (Steve Weisfeld and Joseph Pasquale).
Fighting out of the red corner in green and yellow trunks, the bout was Lomachenko?s first since shoulder surgery temporarily sidelined his career. The new unified champion wasn?t as dominant as in the past, but his skills are so elevated, no one moves like Lomachenko, that his mastery was impossible to ignore.
Pedraza, fighting out of the blue corner in black trunks with gold trim, is a classy boxer in his own right. He held his own against the consensus number one pound-for-pound fighter in the sport and while he may have come up short, Pedraza, to his credit and despite being dropped twice, finished the fight on his feet and not on his stool, unlike several of his predecessors.
?It was my dream to unify titles,? said Lomachenko after the fight. ?It was my next goal. I can now focus on my next chapter?He?s a veteran. He did a very good job, and I respect Pedraza and his team.?
The respect is mutual, but how could it be otherwise?
?I am happy with my performance tonight,? said Pedraza. ?I went 12 rounds with the best fighter in the world. I knew what we were going up against. I thought it was a close fight until the knockdowns. At the end of the day, I am proud of what I did.?
