Vasiliy Lomachenko retained his WBA and WBO lighweight titles with an easy, ruthless knockout of Anthony Crolla on Friday night in Los Angeles, but there’s some bad news: Lomachenko may have broken his right hand while knocking Crolla out in the fourth round.
Loma believes his right hand is broken. Told me it happened on the knockout punch #LomaCrolla
— Crystina Poncher (@CrystinaPoncher) April 13, 2019
The fight, which aired on ESPN+ from the Staples Center, wound up being the mismatch pretty much everybody expected it would be, as Lomachenko (13-1, 10 KO) was levels above Crolla (34-7-3, 13 KO), his WBA mandatory challenger. Once Lomachenko turned on the gas, the fight was over, and really could have been stopped in the third round, but Crolla was sent back out for the fourth like a lamb to the slaughter.
As for the hand, it happened on this punch, according to Lomachenko:
A ringside look of the knockout #LomaCrolla pic.twitter.com/r02x0udN3s
— Top Rank Boxing (@trboxing) April 13, 2019
It was a vicious knockout blow, and Crolla was out of it for a while. But if Lomachenko is right and the hand is broken, that’s obviously a setback for him, though probably not one that would push back his schedule. This is a guy who had shoulder surgery to repair a torn labrum after a May 12 fight last year, then came back to fight on Dec. 8.