When Vasiliy Lomahchenko made the move up to lightweight back in May, winning the WBA title, he put the entire division on notice and fellow champion Robert Easter Jr. would be interested in a fight against him sometime in the future.
Although he has his hands full on a unification fight against WBC titleholder Mikey Garcia on July 28, Easter, the IBF lightweight champion, spoke to Fightful on his interest in fighting Lomachenko. Easter said a potential fight against Lomachenko would be an interesting idea for much later.
A fight between the two won’t happen for quite a while since Lomachenko is recovering from surgery and is expected to be out for several months.
“Of course, a fight against Lomachenko would be something I’m interested in. He has a belt and I’m all about the titles. I want all the titles [at lightweight] and that’s a fight I’m looking forward to doing down the line,” Easter said.
But for now, Easter is focused on his fight against Garcia, the undefeated four-division world champion. With the stakes higher than ever before for Easter, he wants to make sure that there no stone was left unturned in his preparation.
That is why Easter is being trained by renowned boxing trainer Kevin Cunningham, who also recently helped Adrien Broner for his fight against Jessie Vargas in April. Easter told Fightful the decision to be with Cunningham and to have his training camp in Florida is so that he can be free from distractions while training for the biggest fight of his career.
“We’ve been going to coach Kev for a long time and he was willing to help me prepare for this fight. But I needed to get away from home, away from all the distractions and come to a camp where all the focus is on me. The relationship was good, we had some catching up to do. It only took a matter of days [to get back to speed],” Easter said.
Easter is one of the biggest, and quite literally the tallest, world champions at 135 lbs. At 5’11”, Easter towers over boxers at higher weight classes. Although Easter said he is comfortable fighting at lightweight, he didn’t exactly shut down the possibility of moving up in weight in the future.
“After this fight, me and my manager will sit down and see how my body feels. I mean, I make 135 easily. I make it pretty easy so weight is not an issue, it’s just getting the right fights and right opponents and matchups that I can look forward to,” Easter said.
The fight between Easter and Garcia will headline a Showtime Championship Boxing telecast from the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Fightful will bring you live coverage of the card.
