Like virtually everyone else who watched it, Devin Haney wondered why Vasiliy Lomachenko didn’t throw many punches during the first six rounds of his 12-round fight against Teofimo Lopez.

Haney thinks Lopez won, yet the WBC world lightweight champion considers Lomachenko’s strange strategy as responsible for the surprising result as anything. Judges Julie Lederman (119-109), Steve Weisfeld (117-111) and Tim Cheatham (116-112) scored 11, nine and eight rounds, respectively, for Lopez, who won a unanimous decision at MGM Grand Conference Center in Las Vegas.

Haney appreciated Lopez’s performance. He just feels that their 12-round, 135-pound title unification fight was much closer than the scorecards suggested.

“I thought that he won, but the scorecards were way out of whack,” Haney told BoxingScene.com. “But at the end of the day, I think he did deserve to win.”

The 21-year-old Haney has no idea why Lomachenko started so slow.

“I was very surprised at that,” Haney said. “The whole fight, I was waiting for him to do some like astronomical stuff. I was waiting for him to let his hands go. But he waited until the seventh round to literally throw any punches, so it definitely surprised me. Of course, I can’t take anything away from Teofimo because he did what he had to do. But it was a lot on what Loma didn’t do.”

Lomachenko won four of the final five rounds on Cheatham’s scorecard and three of the last five rounds according to Weisfeld. Lederman scored only the 11th round for the three-division champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist.

Ukraine’s Lomachenko (14-2, 10 KOs), who had minor shoulder surgery Monday, wants an immediate rematch. Lopez isn’t contractually obligated to grant him a second chance at any point, though, and the unbeaten Brooklyn native would prefer to oppose contemporaries in the lightweight division, most notably Haney, who considers himself to be the true WBC lightweight champion.

Haney hopes to face Lopez after defending his WBC title against Cuba’s Yuriorkis Gamboa on November 7 at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida. DAZN will stream the 12-round, 135-pound championship bout between Las Vegas’ Haney (24-0, 15 KOs) and the 38-year-old Gamboa (30-3, 18 KOs). 

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.