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Vasiliy Lomachenko and George Kambosos Jr. will meet for the vacant IBF 135-pound title Saturday night time (U.S. time) in Australia on ESPN and ESPN+.
VASILIY LOMACHENKO (17-3, 11 KOs)VS. GEORGE KAMBOSOS JR. (21-2, 10 KOs)
Date: Saturday, Could 11 (in U.S.)
Time: 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT (foremost occasion later in present)
The place: RAC Area, Perth, Australia
TV/Stream: ESPN, ESPN+
Division: Light-weight (135 kilos)
At stake: Vacant IBF title
Boxing Junkie Pound-for-pound: Lomachenko No. 13
Odds: Lomachenko 5½-1 favourite (common of a number of retailers)
Significance (as much as 5 stars): *****
Additionally on the cardboard: Nina Hughes vs. Cherneka Johnson, bantamweights (for Hughes’ WBA title); Andrew Moloney vs. Pedro Guevara, junior bantamweights; Imam Khataev vs. Ricards Bolotniks, gentle heavyweights; Joe Goodall vs. Djanago Opelu, heavyweights
Background: Lomachenko, the 36-year-old boxing wizard from Ukraine, hasn’t held a serious world title since he misplaced his 135-pound belts to Teofimo Lopez in 2020 but continues to be thought-about among the finest boxers on the planet. He bounced again from the loss by stopping Masayoshi Nakatani in June 2021 after which defeating Richard Commey by a one-sided resolution that December. He has fought sporadically since Russia invaded his nation in February 2022, coming into the ring solely twice. He simply outpointed Jamaine Ortiz in October of that yr. Then the previous three-division champion acquired his likelihood to regain previous glory in a gathering with then-undisputed 135-pound champ Devin Haney in Could of final yr. Lomachenko gave a sometimes robust efficiency towards his extremely rated opponent however misplaced a disputed resolution, 116-112, 115-113 and 115-113. He’ll get one other crack at a belt towards Kambosos in Australia. Kambosos shocked the boxing world by defeating Lopez to win a cut up resolution and three 135-pound belts in 2021. It was downhill after that, as he misplaced back-to-back one-sided choices to Haney. He rebounded to beat Maxi Hughes by a majority resolution however he wasn’t convincing final July.