LAS VEGAS ? Highly touted featherweight Vasyl Lomachenko toyed with outmanned challenger Romulo Koasicha in their title fight Saturday in the opener of an HBO doubleheader at the Thomas & Mack Center.
Koasicha didn’t belong in the ring with Lomachenko, did little other than serve as a punching bag and after being pummeled for nine rounds, was felled by three body shots in the 10th.
But despite the disappointment of the one-sided opener, there was plenty of excitement inside the arena because the main event promised great action.
It was not to be, however, as Brandon Rios had nothing for Timothy Bradley, who easily retained his WBO welterweight title in a one-sided fight with a ninth-round stoppage.
Bradley landed a vicious left to the body that dropped Rios in the corner. Rios barely beat referee Tony Weeks’ count, but clearly had nothing left. Bradley landed a four-punch combination, Rios slowly hit the floor again and Weeks stopped it without a count.
“That was the best Bradley I’ve ever seen,” promoter Bob Arum said.
Bradley was indeed impressive, looking much like he did about two years earlier in the same ring when he bested the legendary Juan Manuel Marquez.
In his first bout under new trainer Teddy Atlas, Bradley doubled up on his punches, used his legs to dance out of trouble and picked Rios apart.
Rios, who surrendered meekly after a career spent attacking, lost his spirit somewhere in about the sixth round.
Afterward, he suggested he may retire. He missed the 147-pound welterweight limit on his first try on Friday, and on Saturday, had unofficially rehydrated to 170 pounds.
“He hit me with a perfect shot up the middle to the body and followed with an equally perfect shot on the side,” Rios said. “The better man won. I have no excuses. It is what it is. Maybe all the inactivity wore on me [since a win over Mike Alvarado in January]. I think I’m done.”
There are plenty of big things ahead for Bradley, who remains in the mix for an April 9 rubber match with Manny Pacquiao. Pacquiao asked Top Rank to send him a tape of Saturday’s bout, along with Terence Crawford’s win over Dierry Jean last month.
Bradley took his time on Saturday and systematically took Rios apart. Atlas, who said he’ll work with Bradley again in his next fight, just kept urging Bradley to remain calm and take his time.
“The game plan was to take pieces and break him down little by little,” Atlas said. “[I told him] don’t get greedy and then be like a piranha. Take pieces every round and then finish him off.”
And Bradley, who raved for the past two months about the work Atlas was doing, simply stuck to the plan.
He looked as good as he has since the win over Marquez. Even if he doesn’t get the Pacquiao fight, he’ll get some kind of significant bout and will remain a player at welterweight.
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Timothy Bradley beat Brandon Rios in a ninth-round stoppage. (AP) “I did what Teddy told me and just took pieces each round,” Bradley said. “I just followed the plan Teddy laid out.” As Bradley peppered him with shots through the fight, Rios would repeatedly shake his head no and grin. But it was clear the punches were taking their toll.
Rios didn’t have the fire he’d shown so often in the past. He moved forward, but it was almost as if by rote, and he didn’t have much passion nor did he seem like he had a clear idea of what he wanted to accomplish.
All three judges ? Glenn Feldman, Adalaide Byrd and Glenn Trowbridge ? gave Bradley all eight of the completed rounds. That was an easy one to score, as the CompuBox punch statistics showed.
Bradley landed an astounding 45 percent of his total punches, connecting on 254 of 570 shots. Rios landed just 81 punches in nearly nine rounds, none of them significant, and had a connect rate of only 18 percent.
After he was attended to by the doctors, Rios trudged over to Bradley and embraced him.
“You got me with a great body shot,” he said to Bradley. “I really respect you.”
It was hard not to, given the way Bradley fought.
He’ll move on to something significant, while Rios will need to think carefully of his future. He’s lost three of his past five, and in four of those, he’s taken a lot of abuse.
Bradley finally got out of a bout without taking much, and now will have to wait to see what Pacquiao decides.
Regardless of who is next, though, it will be a rejuvenated Bradley.
This is one case where the change in trainers, from Joel Diaz to Atlas, clearly made a difference. Diaz was in Bradley’s corner from the beginning of his career, but after all those years, perhaps Bradley had begun to tune him out.
Somehow, Atlas got his attention and the changes he made had an obvious impact.
