Two-time Olympic Gold Medal winner Vasyl Lomachenko will take a very tough fight in his pro debut when he takes on Jonathan Oquendo as part of the Timothy Bradley – Juan Manuel Marquez undercard on October 12th in Las Vegas according to Dan Rafael of espn.com
“He’s stepping up right off the bat,” Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti told ESPN.com. “This is a hellacious debut. I don’t mean to be dramatic, but this is unheard of for a pro debut. You probably have to go back to when [Floyd] Patterson fought [Pete] Rademacher.”
“For a pro debut, this ranks way up there because of how tough an opponent Oquendo is. Just look at his credentials,” Moretti said. “Stepping up a gear during any race is no an easy thing to do. In boxing, in a pro debut, it’s unheard of.”
“Lomachenko must have a lot of confidence making his debut against a fighter like me,” Oquendo said. “He must think he’s really good. Let’s see what happens in the ring.”
“He has this zest to reach the top as soon as possible and knew we could provide him the route to getting there,” Moretti said of one of the reasons Lomachenko signed with Top Rank. “He is on this card against a solid 10-round guy who has fought excellent opposition and has always been in a war. When he signed with us and told us what he wanted to do, our eyebrows were raised. But we were all for it. If somebody has that kind of zeal to prove himself right off the bat, why not.”
If Lomachenko comes through the fight, he could be looking at a world title shot early next year. The plan would be to match him with the winner of the fight between former titleholder Orlando Salido (39-12-2, 27 KOs) of Mexico and Orlando Cruz (20-2-1, 10 KOs) of Puerto Rico, who meet for a vacant 126-pound world title in the co-feature of the Oct. 12 card.
“We have our eyes on having Lomachenko fight the Salido-Cruz winner in the first quarter of 2014, in his second or third pro fight,” Moretti said.