NEW YORK — Pound-for-pound king and junior lightweight world champion Vasiliy Lomachenko entered the Madison Square Garden ring on Saturday aiming to carve out yet another piece of boxing history.
And now history is his once again.
Lomachenko survived a sixth-round knockdown to score a 10th-round knockout of Jorge Linares to take the lightweight world championship on Saturday in the main event of the Top Rank Boxing on ESPN card at Madison Square Garden.
With the victory Lomachenko shattered the all-time boxing record for fewest fights needed to win a world title in three weight divisions, accomplishing it in just his 12th fight.
Lomachenko broke the record held by Australian legend Jeff Fenech, a Hall of Famer who won world titles at bantamweight and junior featherweight before winning a belt at featherweight in his 20th fight in 1988.
This was just another slice of history for Lomachenko, whose entire focus when he turned pro after winning Olympic gold medals for Ukraine in 2008 and 20012 was to make as much history as quickly as he could.
In his third pro fight, Lomachenko toyed with Gary Russell Jr. to win a decision and featherweight world title, which allowed him to tie the record for fewest fights needed to claim a world title.
In his seventh fight, Lomachenko moved up to junior lightweight and scored a massive fifth-round knockout of Roman “Rocky” Martinez to take his belt and set the record for fewest fights needed to win a world title in two weight classes.
And now Lomachenko (11-1, 9 KOs), who made all four of his 130-pound title challengers — Nicholas Walters, Jason Sosa, Miguel Marriaga and Guillermo Rigondeaux quit — moved up to 135 pounds to seize the title from Linares (44-4, 27 KOs), considered the No. 1 lightweight in the world going into the fight.
