Vasyl Lomachenko (14-1, 10 KOs) successfully unified the WBC/WBA/WBO lightweight titles on Saturday night with a unanimous decision win over Luke Campbell (20-3, 16 KOs) at the O2 Arena in London.
Campbell got off to a good start, using his reach and obvious height advantage to keep Lomachenko on the outside. Though the first round was somewhat uneventful, Campbell punctuated the first three minutes with a clean shot to the head that stopped Lomachenko in his tracks.
The two would engage in a bit of a chess match over the next few rounds until Lomachenko hurt Campbell badly with a series of body shots in the final seconds of the fifth round.
Campbell recovered well in the sixth but Lomachenko again hurt him to the body in the seventh round and began taking over the fight.
While Campbell continued coming forward and actually appeared to stun Lomachenko later in the fight, he would again get hurt to the body in the 11th, finally going down for an accumulation of punches. Campbell beat the count and made it out of the round, but Lomachenko closed the fight by applying pressure and coming forward.
Final scores were 119-108, 119-108, and 118-109.
“Of course I’m happy. I want to say thank you to [everyone] who came to support us, ” said Lomachenko after the fight. “I want to thank everyone who organized this fight. And, of course, I’m happy. Next… [I want to fight for the] IBF [title]. That is my title.”
“He just beat me, so he’s very good,” added Campbell. “He’s a special fighter and we all knew he was a special fighter. This is boxing and we train to win. Obviously, I’m disappointed in myself for not getting the victory.”