Vasyl Lomachenko won Linares and was the WBA lightweight champion

This was despite being put down in the sixth round by his classy Venezualan opponent.

But Lomachenko received a rare boxing lesson Saturday when he hit the canvas for the first time in his career against Jorge Linares.

At the time of the stoppage, Lomachenko trailed on one scorecard.

“Two great fighters, this is what boxing is all about”, said Top Rank Boxing promoter Bob Arum, who represents Lomachenko.

“That right hand, it was a great punch. It happens”, Lomachenko said.

While Vasyl Lomachenko was fighting for his third world title in just his 12th professional fight. Lomachenko threw at a higher rate, but Linares went to the body and showed his size might matter in the clinches. We don’t know if Lomachenko can land a big punch but I think it will go the distance. The fight itself seemed Venezuelan interesting.

“I want to thank Linares for taking this challenge. I wanted to keep working, but the ref stopped the fight”.

Lomachenko was consistently listed as a 14-1 favorite Saturday, but Linares gave the two-time Olympic gold medalist his toughest fight since Mexican veteran Orlando Salido defeated him by split decision in his second pro fight four years ago.

Linares: 44-3 with 27 knockouts.

In the sixth, Lomachenko got too cocky near the end of the round.

Linares came right at Lomachenko in the beginning of the tenth round but Lomachenko was able to slow him down with an accurate jab.

After several shots to Linares’ head, a left hand to the body ended the bout as Lomachenko made history. Confidence was flowing through Lomachenko with frustration building on the face of Linares, who was becoming more and more wild with his work missing widely.

The tempo accelerated in round two with both fights testing out combinations and Linares attempting to dominate the centre of the ring. Barrera continued to hang in the fight into the eighth round and showed a willingness to exchange, and he may have stolen the round when he landed some short shots on Adames when his back was against the ropes.

According to CompuBox, Lomachenko barely outlanded Linares 213 to 207 in total punches but was more accurate with Lomachenko landing 34 percent of his punches and Linares landed 28 percent of his punches. The judges had it a draw coming into the ultimate round, a bit too close but a demonstration that the fight was closer than the near wipeout ESPN was calling.

“Being on this card with Golden Boy and Top Rank, it’s a blessing”. And now he can be called lightweight champion after picking up the WBA’s version of the belt in front of a crowd of 10,429 that chanted “Loma! After this fight, my team and I have huge plans”. Ukrainian stood up right away and was ready to rejoin the fight. Linares had won 13 straight fights with seven consecutive title defenses.