Vasyl Lomachenko Makes The Fight World Take Notice

Loma has everyone's attention

First things first - I cannot tell a lie. The truth is that I'm not entirely sold on Vasyl Lomachenko yet as a fighter. Oh, he's good. Make no mistake about it, the guy has talent and a pedigree to burn. Is he great, though? The truth is he hasn't had nearly enough fights to qualify as being anything even close to great at this point.

In order for the man to earn the credit some are already giving him, he's got to take on solid opponents. Nicolas Walters, of course, is just such an opponent. A fight between the two men is something that I and a lot of other fight fans would love to see. And here's where it's time to give Loma props:

He wants the fight to happen, too.

Word on the net, however, is that Walters is asking for too much money for the fight to happen. In other words, the guy - rightly or not - may be pricing himself out. Loma, though, has presented a solution of sorts. He's offered, on Twitter of all places, to give Walters 300 thousand dollars should Walters beat him. There's a name for that sort of thing my friends...

...it's called balls.

And balls is what boxing desperately needs right now. While guys like Canelo are making public utterances about catchweights, MMA athletes like Conor McGregor are fighting bigger men on just a few weeks notice - and without hesitation. In other words, boxing's looking bad my friends. Loma deserves some credit for bringing some much needed electricity to the sport right now when it's really required.

Then again, could this all be a ploy on the part of Loma? Are we singing the praises of a trickster here?

After all, one could rightfully ask whether or not Loma could have quietly offered a cut in his own pay so that Walters would get extra money regardless of whether he won or lost. Would it be fair of anyone to make such demands of Loma, though? Honestly, I don't know. I don't want to fall for a publicity stunt, but I also don't want to demand fighter pay cuts, either.

What I do know is that the man's shaken things up a bit during a very quiet time for the sport.