Lomachenko- Saturday Lopez Showdown “Will Be Historical”

The build up to one of the biggest remaining fights of 2020 is underway in Las Vegas, as Vasiliy Lomachenko and Teofimo Lopez get ready to square off for the Undisputed Lightweight title on Saturday night. And, the significance is not lost on the fighters.

Meeting with the media Wednesday night, the WBC “Franshicse”/WBA and WBO 135lb. champ, Lomachenko made clear that he knows a big win against his unbeaten, but largely untested, American opponent Lopez is going to get attention,

They're here. Together. It's real. It's happening.

? #LomaLopez Press Conference LIVE NOW on ESPN2 pic.twitter.com/6mtvdjL3eB

— Top Rank Boxing (@trboxing) October 15, 2020

Lomachenko told moderator and Saturday night’s play by play man for ESPN, Joe Tessitore,

“Of course it’s a very good, very big fight for all people who love boxing- who understand boxing. For the fans? I think it will be a very historical fight.”

As we wrote prevoiusly, the Ukrainian former Olympic Gold Medalist Lomachenko, 14-1, 10 KOs and Lopez 15-0, 12 KOs were originally supposed to fight on May 30th at Madison Square Garden before the Coronavirus outbreak shut down the sport in mid-March.

Lomachenko’s last bout was August 31st of 2019, when he scored an impressive, easy 12 round unanimous decision win over England’s Luke Campbell to add the vacant WBC belt and become Unified 135 lb. champ. And, he’s clearly, been in with better competition than the younger Lopez.

This, as three of his four previous fights he defeated Jose Pedraza, Jorge Linares, and Gulliermo Rigondeaux, all of whom were previous World Title holders.

Lopez comes off his two round destruction of Richard Commey last December to capture the IBF belt and catapult him in front of Lomachenko.

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum and ESPN announced last month that the fight would not be made a PPV or even on their ESPN+ service, and they have been hoping to maybe have some socially distanced fans able to attend. Top Rank will keep the fight within their controlled environment at the MGM Grand conference center.

It is anticipated that the main event will have in excess of two million viewers through ESPN and it’s platforms.

And, they will actually have some 250 invited guests, primarily first responders in the Vegas area to create some atmosphere inside the MGM Grand Conference Center on Saturday night to witness to fighters going for the supremacy at World Lightweight.