On Staurday Ukrainian Vasyl Lomachenko (6-1, 4 KOs) and Jamaican Nicholas Welters (26-0-1, 21 KOs) will clash at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas in Nevada, for the WBO’s World Super Featherweight Championship.
Lomachenko, twice an Olympic champion, will defend his title for the first time since winning it on June 11 against Puerto Rican Roman Martinez via a fifth round knockout.
Even though he lost against Orlando Salido in just his second career fight, he’s recovered nicely and his last three victories came via knockouts.
The Ukrainian also holds the WBO Featherweight title, which he won in the third fight of his career, against Gary Russell Jr., and has successfully defended three times.
Walters, a former featherweight champion, has not fought since facing Jason Sosa on December 19, 2015, a bout that resulted in a very controversial draw that most observers thought he should have won.
The last victory for Walters came in June 2015 when he defeated Colombian Miguel Marriaga at the Madison Square Garden in New York via unanimous decision.
The Jamaican had won all his fights before the controversial draw, with 75 percent of those victories coming via knockouts. The high KO percentage of both fighters (Lomachenko has won 57 percent of his fights via KO) has boxing pundits predicting a fight that will finish well before the 12th round.
In fact the 28-year-old Ukrainian is a big favorite of oddmakers everywhere as the fight line has him at -775 and Walters at+550.
Lomachenko currently ranks as the seventh best pound-for-pound fighter in the world according to the prestigious The Ring magazine.
