Three-division world champion, Vasiliy Lomachenko, has weighed in on the rehydration clause for Gervonta Davis and Ryan Garcia.
Lomachenko is well respected in the boxing community after one of the most impressive amateur records of all-time propelled him into a world title fight in just his second professional fight.
This would have seen him break the record of Saensak Muangsurin’s title victory in 1975, who picked up world honours after three fights. Unfortunately, Loma couldn’t break the record, losing to Orlando Salido, but matched the achievement of Muangsurin by defeating Gary Russell Jr for the WBO featherweight title in his next outing.
Since then, Loma has flown through the divisions, picking up an additional five titles at super-featherweight and lightweight but lost his unified title in a shock defeat to Teofimo Lopez in 2020.
The Ukrainian has a chance to become the undisputed lightweight king and win back those belts against Devin Haney, but for now, like many of the boxing world, he is playing the role as fan for one of the fights of the year in ‘Tank’ vs Garcia.
In an interview with ES News, Lomachenko said that Garcia’s 10lb rehydration clause will prove to be a stumbling block for the youngster, who previously moved up from the lightweight division after struggling to make the weight.
Now, in a catchweight bout just one pound higher than the lightweight limit (135lb), Loma feels that weight issues could be a deciding factor in the fight and could be detrimental to Garcia.
“It is one more thing why Gervonta Davis can beat him. I think so [it will matter] because Ryan Garcia is very big for 135lbs.”
Garcia has said that he won’t struggle on the scales, but pointed to the catchweight and rehydration as Davis skewing things in his favour.