It's fair to say the Vasiliy Lomachenko camp was not happy with the Devin Haney decision last night.
Haney earned the unanimous decision win in his lightweight title fight against Lomachenko in a very close and competitive fight that could have gone either way.
However, many observers, including the resulting booing Las Vegas crowd, felt Lomachenko should have won and the matter was made even worse by a poor 116-112 card by one of the judges.
Lomachenko — who cried in the dressing room afterwards — was certainly not pleased as he all but felt his chance of finally becoming an undisputed lightweight champion was stolen from him.
“I don't want to talk about the decision. All [the] people see what happened here today,” Lomachenko said in his post-fight interview (via Boxing Scene). “… Before, I thought he would be better. He’s a tough fighter. He’s a good fighter. But he’s not a pound-for-pound fighter.
“I think I showed that I can still be in boxing. I’m in good shape now. And see you next time. Right now I want to go back home and support my country and support my Ukrainian orthodox church.”
Lomachenko's manager Egas Klimas was more upfront about how he felt as he called the decision a “robbery” and plans on appealing the result.
“We're not going to let this go,” Klimas said (via ESPN). “I guarantee we're going to protest. I guarantee we're going to appeal that decision, because somebody needs to end this injustice.”
Lomachenko, a former unified lightweight champion and pound-for-pound great, suffered the third defeat of his professional career in the process.
Although he held multiple lightweight belts in the past, he was never undisputed like Haney currently is. Considering how close the fight was, many, including Haney fans, wouldn't mind seeing an immediate rematch.
However, such is boxing that only the champion really gets to decide if they get a rematch clause during negotiations.
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