Vasiliy Lomachenko Turns Down Championship Fight To Continue Defending Ukraine

Vasiliy Lomachenko will not be fighting George Kambosos Jr. for the undisputed lightweight title.

Lomachenko and Kambosos Jr. were targeted to fight one another on June 5 in Melbourne, Australia but on Monday evening, it was revealed Lomachenko has turned down the fight as he will continue to defend Ukraine from the Russian invasion instead. Lomachenko was one of many athletes like Oleksandr Usyk and the Klitschko brothers to defend their country.

Kambosos Jr.’s promoter, Lou DiBella told ESPN that he has no problem with Lomachenko’s decision as he says this is bigger than boxing.

How can anyone question, the fight he’s going through right now is much bigger than any boxing match,” DiBella said. “We made a deal with him, the deal was literally done before the invasion, we wanted to give him any chance within reason with our allowable timetable. We have nothing but the utmost respect for his decision. Kambosos wanted to make sure once we made that deal that Lomachenko had ample time to decide. … We said all along we would try to make the biggest fights and we did that today.”

With Vasiliy Lomachenko declining the fight, Devin Haney was once again offered the bout and Kambosos Jr. tweeted at Haney to accept the fight.

“You were offered [the fight] months ago & you played around,” Kambosos Jr. tweeted at Haney. “In the meantime the great man Vasiliy Lomachenko made it very simple to do anything to make it happen & it was a done deal. But Loma now has a bigger fight [at the moment] which I totally respect so let’s see how much of your word is true.”

Vasiliy Lomachenko is 16-2 and has won two straight since losing his belt in an upset loss to Teofimo Lopez back in October 2020. George Kambosos Jr., meanwhile, is 20-0 and coming off the massive upset win over Lopez back in November to win the lightweight titles.

What do you make of Lomachenko turning down the title fight?