Bob Arum compares Vasyl Lomachenko to Muhammad Ali

Bob Arum has made a decent living being a salesman.

Arum has hyped up countless boxing cards and fighters in his 50 years as a promoter. It’s his job to sell anything under his Top Rank banner, regardless of what you think of the product. But no boxing promoter ever dares to compare a young fighter to the legendary Muhammad Ali unless they really meant it.

That’s exactly what Arum did this week when he showered rising star Vasyl Lomachenko with Ali comparisons.

“I would like to say this, Vasyl Lomachenko is technically the best fighter that I have seen since the early Muhammad Ali,” Arum said during a conference call. “There is nobody that I have seen, and there have been a lot of great technical fighters that I have seen – Alexis Arguello was one, Floyd Mayweather certainly, Manny Pacquiao – but there has been nobody with the skills that Vasyl Lomachenko has.”

Arum’s comments have been heard by the boxing world and were brought up to Lomachenko during his Tuesday media workout at Top Rank Gym. Lomachenko (6-1, 4 knockouts) will defend his WBO junior lightweight belt against Nicholas Walters (26-0-1, 21 KOs) Saturday at The Chelsea inside The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.

“It gives me a lot of motivation and it gives me something to prove,” Lomachenko said about being compared to Ali. “If I fail, I’ll put Mr. Bob in a very bad position and nobody else is going to believe Mr. Bob and I can’t do that to Mr. Bob.”

Lomachenko is never in need of motivation, but he always welcomes a challenge. When he was told he couldn’t win an Olympic gold medal for Ukraine, he went and captured two (Beijing 2008, London 2012).

When he was told he couldn’t win a world title in his second professional fight, he failed and lost to Orlando Salido. But that didn’t stop Lomachenko. He went on to win two division titles in his first seven fights, the fastest boxer to ever accomplish that feat.

Lomachenko, 28, has yet to achieve mainstream success, but it probably won’t be long before he gets there. He was given the nickname “Hi-Tech” from an Olympic reporter in 2008 for his creativity in the ring and ability to do everything faster than most boxers.

There’s a YouTube video of the Ukrainian star called “Lomachenko is in The Matrix” that has generated more than 500,000 views. It’s a highlight reel of Lomachenko’s bout against Romulo Koasicha at the Thomas & Mack last year where he’s ducking countless punches while coming in from all angles for quick combinations. Fighters from Mortal Kombat couldn’t have done it better.

Lomachenko has Mayweather-like defensive skills, but prefers to put on a show and aim for knockouts. His vicious knockout of Roman Martinez in June to win the WBO belt is the frontrunner to win Knockout of the Year honors. A picture of Lomachenko doing a backflip while Martinez was still on the canvas will probably also garner some awards.

The two-division champion said boxing is losing many fans to the UFC because there isn’t enough excitement in the sport.

“I think boxing has become a little bit boring and my thing is that I want to somehow bring it back and to show people it is not boring,” Lomachenko said. “But right now people are going to UFC and MMA more than boxing and I wanted to show them it is a very interesting sport and there’s a lot to it.”

There’s no question that Lomachenko wants to be a star in America, but he understands he needs to learn English first. Lomachenko isn’t comfortable speaking the language yet and had his manager Egis Klimas translate his interviews on Tuesday. But there were times he answered for himself.

“Ice hockey,” Lomachenko said when asked about his other favorite sports. “(Alexander) Ovechkin is my favorite.”

Lomachenko’s father, Anatoly, is a renowned trainer who has helped all the top Ukraine fighters. Vasyl Lomachenko said his father was against him boxing at first.

“He was pushing me to all kinds of different sports,” Lomachenko said. “I think my father had that tactic to push me out of boxing and that made me get the big desire where I was hungry for it.”

Lomachenko’s major 2016 year could get better with a victory against Walters, a hard-hitting former champion from Jamaica.

“I think it is going to be very, very hard for me in the first four rounds, then after that, I will be trying to terminate the bout,” Lomachenko said.

Contact Gilbert Manzano at gmanzano@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0492. Follow @gmanzano24 on Twitter.