George Kambosos says he wanted to get up and continue fighting in the eleventh round after Vasily Lomachenko knocked him down for the second time with a hard shot to the midsection last Saturday night at the RAC Arena in Perth, Australia.
Kambosos (21-3, 10 KOs) states the referee and his father chose to pull him out. Otherwise, he would have gotten back up and continued fighting.
In hindsight, it’s a good thing they stopped the fight because Kambosos was a bloody mess, and he would not have stayed on his feet for more than a few seconds if the fight had been allowed to continue.
Lomachenko would have kept knocking Kambosos down to the point where it would have been counted out in the traditional fashion.
Early Success and a Change in Strategy
Kambosos says he felt he was doing well early, attacking Lomachenko’s body, creating red marks. It’s clear that Kambosos was following Devin Haney’s game plan of attacking Lomachenko’s body, but he veered away from that after three or four rounds, and that’s where things got out of hand.
Kambosos kept trying to land headshots, missing and getting outmaneuvered by Lomachenko.
“I wanted to get back up, but the ref and my father always look at the fighter. I became undisputed and fought the best of the best,” said George Kambosos at the post-fight press conference, talking about how he wanted to continue after being dropped twice by Vasily Lomachenko in round eleven last Saturday night.
Kambosos was never actually the undisputed lightweight champion in 2021, but he did hold four belts, minus the WBC title, which means he was NOT the undisputed in the true sense. He fought the right guy at the time. Lomachenko was fighting a war in Ukraine, and Gervonta Davis wasn’t going to fight him.
“I couldn’t give anymore, but I’m a warrior. I’ll see what’s next. I sold out another stadium. So much for Australian boxing. I’m not finished yet. I had the perfect game plan from the start to break the body down.”
It would have been interesting to see how the fight would have turned out if Kambosos had stuck to the game plan and continued attacking Lomachenko’s body like he was doing in the first two rounds. Would Kambosos have weakened Lomachenko like Haney did, or would he have still lost the fight by knockout?
The Turning Point
“I was landing beautiful body shots. Then when he started picking up the timing and landing some good shots,” said Kambosos about the effects of his body punching on Lomachenko early on.
“His sides were getting ruined with red marks were making an effect. Like I said, he caught me with a good shot in the back of the head with an equilibrium shot. It shows the warrior I am,” said Kambosos about the shot that Lomachenko hit him with in the fourth or fifth round that took the fight out of him.
