As Top Rank promoter Bob Arum continues his chat with Fight Hub TV, Arum discusses a little of tomorrow’s fight between Vasiliy Lomachenko and Anthony Crolla as well as some bigger fights out there for Lomachenko.
On muted fan reaction to Lomachenko fighting Crolla and if this could turn out to be a good fight:
“Crolla is a real good pro, he’ll be in there trying, and people will be able to see this once in a generation talent, Lomachenko, perform. You know, anytime you see Lomachenko in with any good, tough pro, it doesn’t matter how competitive it ultimately is, but you see a master at work. And that’s worth everything.”
On what he thinks makes Lomachenko such a special fighter:
“It’s the training he got from his father...He is disciplined, he really has developed a skill set, because of his father, like no other fighter I’ve ever seen. ‘Well is he better than Crawford?’ Well, Crawford is different. Terence is like Sugar Ray Leonard. So I think Terence is a great fighter, you can argue he’s #1, Lomachenko’s #1, but I’ve seen Terence Crawford before when I watched Sugar Ray Leonard. I’ve never seen Vasiliy Lomachenko before.”
On what his next plans for Lomachenko are:
“I want him to fight twice more this year, Commey is a possibility. If [Mikey] Garcia is gonna go down to 135 and realize that his marketability has been affected by the poor performance against Spence — I know Spence was the bigger guy — but you don’t go in and take people’s money and don’t try to win. He didn’t try to win that fight, he tried to survive.
“But if he’s at 135, that would be a good fight, and then next year, hopefully, if Teofimo Lopez continues, match them right after the Super Bowl.”
On how a Lomachenko-Garcia fight gets made:
“I don’t know how that fight gets made. Mikey seems to talk for himself. First he has to decide whether he can come down to 135. He might not be able to. If he doesn’t the fight won’t be made. Hopefully Luke Campbell ends up with the [WBC] belt. And if Luke ends up with the [WBC] belt, that’ll be the fourth unification, because Loma is looking for the opportunity to fight in the UK and he’d be happy to go over and fight Luke Campbell. So let’s see what happens, but I think the big PPV fight for Loma — if Teofimo continues with this wild, wild streak — is Loma and Teofimo. That’s the fight that people will wanna see and pay for.”
On if Teofimo Lopez needs to be built more for that fight to happen:
“Well, we’re building...In New York [Lopez] has a bigger audience than Garcia. It’s the truth. Mikey Garcia is a good fighter but is essentially Mexican. Teofimo really resonates with the Puerto Ricans and Hondurans back east. And Teofimo is a showman. It’s not like Mikey, who, you know, goes in and fights and is not really interesting as a person. Teofimo and his father are really interesting people. And as long as he keeps performing for the rest of the year, believe me, Loma and Teofimo is a much bigger fight than Loma and Garcia.”