Photo: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
LOS ANGELES — Top Rank CEO Bob Arum’s claim that Vasyl Lomachenko is the greatest fighter he’s watched since Muhammad Ali was scoffed at by many pundits. After Lomachenko’s performance on Saturday night, that claim might not be so outrageous.
As he seems to do in pretty much every fight, Lomachenko dominated his way to another impressive stoppage victory at the Microsoft Theater.
The Ukrainian fighter made Marriaga look like an amateur, toying with him for most of the fight. Marriaga found little success in the first two rounds and then things only got worse.
After taunting Lomachenko in the third by making a gesture as if to say “bring on the action,” Lomachenko obliged by turning up the pace and unleashing vicious punches from all angles and eventually dropping him with a left hand just before the end of the round.
Lomachenko dropped Marriaga again in the seventh. After walking to his corner at the end of the round and his corner probably figuring he was hopelessly behind, the fight was stopped.
It was an eighth-round TKO win for Lomachenko, who called out Guillermo Rigondeaux and Mikey Garcia in his post-fight interview.
