After Vasyl Lomachenko put on another masterclass performance against challenger Guillermo Rigondeaux last month, the Ukrainian then switched his focus to Floyd Mayweather Jr and his protege Gervonta Davis.
Arguably the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world tweeted at Mayweather and Davis with clear intentions.
. @FloydMayweather It would have been an honor to fight you in your prime but I’m not talking about you. Please stop hiding your fighter.
— LOMA (@VasylLomachenko) December 19, 2017
Davis, the former IBF super featherweight champion, lost his belt after missing weight against Francisco Fonseca in August last year. The controversy continued when ‘Tank’ knocked Fonseca out with a strike to the back of the head which was not detected by the referee in charge.
With 19 wins (18 KO’s) on his belt, Davis has expressed interest in fighting Lomachenko.
In an interview with fighthype.com, Mayweather reveals Lomachenko is the fight Davis wants but Floyd the promoter is not so sure his fighter is ready for a challenge like ‘Hi-Tech’.
“Lomachenko… he can fight. He can fight. One thing we’re not going to do is knock a guy to can fight. He can fight. But at the same time…we know that Rigondeaux was extremely small, extremely small. So my thing is this with all these young fighters, you are all calling out ‘oh we want to fight Tank’, at the end of the day guess what?
“At the end of the day, I’m going to say, ‘Tank, there’s no rush. You’re still young. If you want to fight, there’s plenty of fights. You got a lot of fights left in you. You’re only 22, just turning 23 years old. If he wants to fight till he’s 36, 37, he’s still got 15 years left. He’s OK. But if you rush and fight all the hard fights right now, you ain’t going to be able to make it to 38 or 39 in the boxing business,” said Floyd.
https://twitter.com/EditinKing/status/946493374936252416
Reportedly, Lomachenko made 1.2 million dollars from his fight against Rigondeaux, who made 400 000 dollars reportedly. Mayweather thinks the Ukrainian is being vastly underpaid by his promoter, Bob Arum, who used to represent Mayweather as well until ‘Money’ decided to part ways with the notorious Arum.
“So he [Lomachenko] got 1.2 million. This is a guy thats won two gold medals. This is the guy they are talking about. Pound-for-pound best fighter in the boxing. He’s making 1.2 million dollars. He better start looking at his promoter and say ‘I’m only going by what I feel’, he’s been treating his fighters bad for over 40 years. As soon as I got away from him, as soon as I got away from Bob Arum, I instantly started making crazy money. Instantly!” shouted Mayweather.
Floyd then continued:
“So Lomachenko made 1.2 million and the boy got 400, that’s 1.6… I got fighters making that. So at the end of the day, I wish Lomachenko nothing but the best,” he added.
Despite saying that Davis is in no rush to fight the Ukrainian, Mayweather claims he is not hiding his protege from anybody.
“I’m not hiding no body. Tank wants to fight you [Lomachenko]. Tank ain’t hiding from you. Tank wants to fight you. Tank asked me about fighting you on more than just one occasion. For me as a mentor, as a father figure, I told him there is no rush. ‘Remember he’s 30-years-old, Tank. Seven years in front of you. You still got time.'” said Mayweather.
Floyd feels strongly that Lomachenko should have received a bigger payday than just 1.2 million.
“I thought this was a huge fight. A colossal fight. Such a huge fight but if this is a fight of that magnitude, the money gotta be better. So Lomachenko, tell your promoter to pay you. You’re getting 1.2, you should have got 2.5.”
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