Top Rank boss Bob Arum said in August that a potential pitting between Vasiliy Lomachenko and George Kambosos Jr. was “nonsense.”
At the time, Loma had opted not to fight for the rest of the year, eventually passing on negotiations for a potential Shakur Stevenson fight.
After undisputed lightweight champion Devin Haney vacated his 135-pound titles in November, Arum now believes a fight between the Ukrainian Lomachenko and Greek-Austrailian Kambosos makes all the sense in the world.
“We’re trying to finalize a world title fight at 135 pounds between Lomachenko and Kambosos,” Arum told BoxingScene.com in an interview on Monday. “I really believe we’ve made a lot of progress. I believe that fight will happen sometime in April in Australia. I’m looking forward to it. Australia is a great country.”
Lomachenko (17-3, 11 KOs) and Kambosos (21-2, 10 KOs) would likely fight for the vacant IBF title.
Kambosos is ranked No. 2 by the sanctioning body following his majority decision win against Maxi Hughes in June in an IBF eliminator. Lomachenko is ranked as the No. 3 lightweight by the IBF. The No. 1 slot is vacant, just like the title.
Lomachenko is a former three-division champion and a unified lightweight titlist who last fought Haney in May and suffered a close unanimous decision loss.
Kambosos reached the pinnacle of his career to this point by beating Teofimo Lopez Jr. in 2021 for the WBO, WBA, and IBF lightweight titles but suffered a pair of losses to Haney as well in 2022 in Australia.
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist, writer, and broadcast reporter. He’s also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and the MMA Journalists Association. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan, through email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com, or via www.ManoukAkopyan.com.