Photo by Mikey Williams/Top Rank via Getty Images
Vasiliy Lomachenko came up short against Teofimo Lopez and left the ring injured, but the fight did great numbers for ESPN.
Saturday night featured a great UFC main event between Brian Ortega vs. The Korean Zombie, but that wasn’t even close to the biggest combat sports attraction taking place that evening. Over on ESPN a lightweight unification boxing fight between top P4P-ranked Vasiliy Lomachenko and 23-year-old budding superstar Teofimo Lopez went down. And people watched in droves.
Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports took to social media to enlighten the masses with the very impressive ratings:
The #LomaLopez did MASSIVE numbers on ESPN Saturday in overall viewers and in 18-49. The entire six-hour block averaged 1.54 million — including prelims — and main event peaked at 2.898 million. Main event was NEVER under 2.3 million. Up against Alabama-Georgia and MLB Game 7
— Kevin Iole (@KevinI) October 20, 2020
Iole also mentioned that Lomachenko, who dropped a decision to Lopez and didn’t look like himself in the fight, underwent shoulder surgery following the bout:
Just learned that @VasylLomachenko had shoulder surgery yesterday performed by highly respected Dr. Neal ElAttrache. Story to come soon on @YahooSports
— Kevin Iole (@KevinI) October 20, 2020
A couple of other tidbits on Loma’s shoulder surgery: Right shoulder labrum repair, not as extensive as previous surgery. Caused pain throwing right hook. Should be able to train toward end of Jan, early February
— Kevin Iole (@KevinI) October 20, 2020
In the accompanying article, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said that Loma never mentioned any issues at all before the bout. His surgeon said it was the same shoulder that he had previously had surgery on, and that Loma wouldn’t be able to return to training until at least January 2021. But he did admit that Loma has having trouble with the shoulder before the fight:
“When he came in from the Ukraine for his last stages of preparation for the fight, he was having some difficulty with the shoulder,” ElAttrache told Yahoo Sports. “It turns out he had badly bruised the rotator cuff and chipped a piece of cartilage, which we didn’t realize at the time. But we knew he’d badly bruised the rotator cuff and badly bruised the bone where the rotator cuff attaches to the shoulder. That was roughly six weeks before the fight and we got him to where he was comfortable enough to train. He said he was able to train OK, but it continued to cause him pain during the fight.”
Regardless, the doctor indicated that the prognosis is good. Either way though, we won’t be seeing a rematch anytime soon.