Most people asked about O’Shaquie Foster vs Vasiliy Lomachenko give you a name. Coach Stephen “Breadman” Edwards gave Mill City Boxing something rarer: the conditions. The fight would be huge at 130 — especially if Foster collects the fourth belt first — and the stakes are historic either way. Lomachenko never lost at 130, his best division; an undisputed run there would put him next to Floyd Mayweather, Julio Cesar Chavez and Alexis Arguello as the best ever at the weight. If Foster gets the fourth belt and beats him, Breadman says, it probably punches Foster’s ticket to the Hall of Fame. He ranks the matchup among the five biggest fights the division has ever had.
But the pick comes with a gate on it. Lomachenko is 38, coming off a layoff, and has not made 130 in ten years — there is no guarantee he looks like prime Lomachenko. Foster is in his groove right now and, in Breadman’s words, would have been hard work even for the prime version. If Lomachenko jumped straight in with no tune-up, Breadman could not pick him. With a tune-up first, he has to see how he looks. The one firm direction he gave is conditional: if Lomachenko shows up at his absolute best — the version that made Nicholas Walters quit — Breadman picks Lomachenko.
On Shakur Stevenson vs Foster, Breadman was just as careful: competitive, yes; a pick, no. The two have sparred before, and Foster’s IQ lets him download things from sparring. Shakur has the freakier natural gifts and is the bigger man, but Breadman does not think he stops Foster — Foster has a good chin and would win rounds. The real obstacle may be the scale: Foster is a 130 fighter and Shakur holds titles at 135 and 140, and Foster does not look like a 140-pounder.
The Zuffa release got the same treatment. Going by Dana White’s side of it, Breadman read the release of a fighter that good — before he ever fought for them — as frustration with trying to do business with Shakur, and said he wants to hear Shakur explain himself, because the money claims flying around (a turned-down $7 million for the Rayo fight; the $15 million Conor Benn made for Ryan Garcia as the comparison Shakur is measured against) are, in Breadman’s own words, unverified until somebody shows the offers. His closing advice to every fighter arguing online: show the email threads. It is a fitting end to a week where Foster and Lomachenko shook hands on this fight in person — the two men in this story doing the least talking are the champion collecting belts and the legend flying in to challenge him.
Video credit: MillCity Boxing.
