The great Vasiliy Lomachenko has retired and, aged 37, might have left behind him a legacy that will not be matched.
He went 18-3 (12 KOs) but was world-class from his debut, following two Olympic gold medals and a legendary 396-1 mark as an amateur. The southpaw could do it all. He was silky but vicious, sharp yet always fluid, and he will be missed by the fight crowd who adored his unparalleled skills and wizardry.
In light of his retirement, here are five of the steps he took to greatness.
1. Dethroning Jorge Linares, May 12, 2018
There are plenty who will claim that this was Lomachenko at his most sublime. Between them Lomachenko and Linares shared a clinic of high-class boxing at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
The Ukrainian was dropped in the sixth, the Mexican was floored to the body in the 10th, and Lomachenko – incredibly – became a three-weight world champion within just 12 fights by stopping Limares in the 10th to win the WBA title.
“I want to say thank you to Jorge Linares, he is a great fighter and he gave me one more lesson in boxing,” said the winner. “I knew about this punch [Linares’ straight right]. But he is good. I prepared for the last few rounds, and my father [Anatoly] told me, ‘You need to go to the body’.”
Top Rank’s PR guru Evan Korn had only recently joined the promotional powerhouse, but he was beyond impressed by what he saw and cites that as the best he saw Loma. “He fought the best version of Linares that night and overcame a torn labrum to knock him out and become a three-weight world champion,” said Korn. “Astonishing courage and the victory that I believe defined his greatness.”
Many would contend that lightweight was unnecessarily heavy for Lomachecnko and that junior lightweight was perhaps the sweet spot for his skills and size, but the big money and the bigger names were at 135lbs, so he stayed there and chased the smoke.
2. Making Guillermo Rigondeaux walk, December 2017
This was a match – it’s not hyperbole to suggest – between two of the greatest amateurs of all time. It was supposed to be high-speed chess, but Loma was playing checkers and outclassed the Cuban. Loma served to illustrate the difference between a good Eastern European fighter turning pro – and their skillsets – and a Cuban doing the same. Rigondeaux was the smaller man and, to his immense credit, moved up two weights to challenge the Ukrainian, but the fight was so appealing to the connoisseurs that Roy Jones called it: “The best paper fight ever made.”
Alas Rigondeaux, running out of ideas in the sixth, was docked a point for holding and stopped fighting at the end of that round, citing a damaged hand. The bout also marked the fourth consecutive fight in which an opponent had either surrendered or their corner had thrown in the towel, such was the gap in class between Lomachenko and them.
Modest as ever, Loma merely said: “This is not his weight, so it’s not a big win for me." It was for everyone else.
3. The “Axe Man” bails, November 2016
Nicholas Walters was unbeaten and feared. Two fights beforehand, he stopped Nonito Donaire in six rounds, and although he drew with Jason Sosa, his power was legit and posed a threat to everyone at junior lightweight.
“My goal is to be the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world,” Loma said, after Walters bailed in the seventh round. “I had my plan. I knew it would take about four rounds and then I went to work on him. In the end he just quit.”
For veteran observer Kieran Mulvaney – then of HBO and in 2025 of BoxingScene – it was Loma at his imperious best. “He was on a scary streak,” he said of Walters. “And had recently fustigated Nonito, and Vasiliy flat out made him quit. Funnily enough, I was sitting ringside at a monitor with headphones on listening to the HBO broadcast. Nobody in the arena knew what had happened and Nonito plonked himself next to me to ask what was going on. That was part of that streak when he made, I think, four straight opponents quit because they just couldn’t touch him.”
4. The loss to Orlando Salido, March 2014
This was a rarity, one of only three losses – the others were later on and to Teofimo Lopez and Devin Haney – and one that came in just his second fight. It became clear – not that we needed clarity – how special Lomachenko would be when in just his second fight he took a seasoned and world-class operator like Orlando Salido to a 12-round split decision, for the WBO featherweight title. Salido was 41-12-2 at the time, and for his debut Loma had earned his shot at Salido by defeating Jose Luis Ramirez, 25-3, in the fourth of a scheduled 10.
5. The numbers don’t lie against Suriya Tatakhun, November 2014
It is, admittedly, hard to look beyond the numbers here. There were better performances and bigger wins, but the stats are simply dazzling when you consider Lomachenko was 2-1 going into his fourth fight and his opponent in Macau, Tatakhun, was 51-1. Perhaps the promoters of the show in Macau – on a bill topped by Manny Pacquiao-Chris Algieri – hoped Tutakhun might teach Loma about life in the pros. But he was dropped in the fourth and beaten in every round, losing 120-107 on all three scorecards, with Loma making the first defense of the WBO featherweight title he had claimed in just his third fight.