By Ben Jacobs

One of the sport’s most talented exponents appears on the undercard of Floyd Mayweather – Manny Pacquiao Saturday night in Las Vegas.  Vasyl Lomachenko (3-1, 1 KO), already a world champion four fights into his professional career makes the second defence of his WBO featherweight crown against Puerto Rico’s Gamalier Rodríguez (25-2-3, 17 KOs).

Oxnard-based Cicilio Flores is the Ukrainian’s strength and conditioning coach and provided an update to BoxingScene.com on their training camp.

“Camp went really well, this is my third camp with him and it gets better and better,” said Flores.

“The more I know my athlete the better I’m able to customise their training programme because I’m more familiar with them.  Things are going great, no injuries. We had great sparring.  He has no problems with his weight.”

Such is Lomachenko’s rapid progress in the paid ranks, there are already calls for him to face men such as Guillermo Rigondeaux or Nicholas Walters.  Flores sees those big fights happening down the line.

“I know that Lomachenko isn’t taking anybody lightly, he wants to fight the best in the world.  This is a mandatory for the WBO so he will go with his obligations.  This guy is young, tough and hungry.  He has lost but that was early in his career so Lomachenko is looking to have a great performance and try to steal the show.”

Following Gary Russell Jr’s destruction of Jhonny González, Lomachenko’s victory over the American now appears to be even more impressive.

“Gary Russell had a great win over Jhonny González.  We were together watching the fight, they kept bringing up Lomachenko’s name every question but big props to Gary for taking care of business.

“He [Lomachenko] would love to unify the titles, fight the best.  That’s one of his goals and dreams.”