"I think Luke is more suited stylistically to give Lomachenko a better fight. Olympic medallist, fantastic amateur"
Wednesday 3 July 2019 19:17, UK
Anthony Crolla believes Luke Campbell may have more success against Vasyl Lomachenko than he did against the Ukrainian superstar.
Campbell, the WBC's mandatory challenger, is likely to take on Lomachenko in the UK on August 31, with the official confirmation expected in the next few days.
Former world champion Crolla suffered a brutal fourth-round knockout at the hands of Lomachenko in his bid to to regain the WBA lightweight title along with the WBO belt in Los Angeles in April.
"Me and Luke are very, very differently stylistically, in fact we couldn't be further apart," Crolla told Sky Sports.
"I think Luke is more suited stylistically to give Lomachenko a better fight. Olympic medallist, fantastic amateur.
"I believe, and this is what I think Shane [McGuigan], who is fantastic trainer, will have him doing, I believe he will be looking to keep it long, use those advantages.
"To me, it just depends on how aggressive Loma comes out. If he comes out so aggressive, he could get to Luke a lot earlier but I think he will look to box and I think for four rounds it will be pretty cagey.
"It will be good to watch from a pure boxer's point of view. I think it will be a real chess match at the highest, highest quality - two Olympic gold medallists, two world class fighters.
"I think Luke will have little bits of success, he's very good and bowling the back hand up and he'll be a lot bigger than Lomachenko but it's just how long you can keep Lomachenko off and how he closes the distance, super, super clever."
Crolla admitted was unable to spot any chinks in Lomachenko's armour during the four rounds he shared with the three-weight champion.
"Did I see any weaknesses, honestly no I didn't," added Crolla. "I didn't land enough. I remember landing one decent shot and it was the worst thing I could have done because he went through the gears a little bit then.
"I've been in boxing in 20 years and I've been in with some class fighters both in the ring on fight night and in sparring. Even in the second [Jorge] Linares fight where I got beat well, I got beat really convincing, I still felt comfortable going forward, trying to get my shots off even though a lot was coming back my way.
"When Lomachenko went through the gears, it was a horrible feeling because it was a bit like 'I can't really do owt here'. I've got to wait for him to stop and then try and do something because it's not that I couldn't go with him because I hadn't trained enough, it's just I couldn't live with him.
"Sometimes you've just got to be brutally honest and he was just levels above. He was that good the way he varies up the power of his shots, the speed of his shots, his positioning, always very well balanced.
"A very, very complete fighter."
