Normally level-headed, Vasiliy Lomachenko was seething and foaming at the mouth following a close but clear defeat at the hands of Teofimo Lopez in 2020. After being ushered into the medical tent to repair a bothersome shoulder injury, the former two-time Olympic gold medalist reeled off two consecutive victories.

Although those aforementioned wins pushed him to the front of the championship line, the 35-year-old passed on the opportunity to face George Kambosos Jr. for the WBO, WBA, and IBF lightweight titles - to lend a helping hand to his native land of Ukraine in the ongoing Russian invasion.

Following nearly one full year relatively close to the battle lines, Lomachenko (17-2, 11 KOs) would make his return late last year against Jamaine Ortiz. By and large, the 26-year-old Ortiz was viewed as nothing more than a sacrificial lamb on Lomachenko’s road back to the sports mountain top. Nevertheless, while he was viewed as a gargantuan favorite, Ortiz (16-1-1, 8 KOs) forced his lightweight counterpart to pull out just about every trick from up his sleeves.

In the end, even Lomachenko's staunchest fans were ambivalent toward the decision. Fast forward just a few months later, and the Ukrainian star has been peppered with chastising comments. As his age and performance have come into question, Lomachenko is attempting to remind folks of one particular outlier on the night of his showdown against Ortiz.

“Look, he was my sparring partner,” said Lomachenko to a group of reporters. “We had a lot of rounds with him in the ring. Everybody forget about this.”

As Lomachenko alludes to, both he and Ortiz have spent countless hours in the gym working side by side. While those gym wars may have aided Ortiz in years past, according to Lomachenko, it also gave him a healthy dose of what he brought to the table.

With his contentious victory behind him, Lomachenko is now preparing to take on arguably the most challenging foe of his career. On May 20th, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, undisputed world titlist, Devin Haney, will look to crush the Ukrainian’s dreams.

Presently, Lomachenko is focused on usurping Haney come the night of the fight. However, before he completely envelops himself in training camp, he took the time to warn the rest of the division’s mainstays that Ortiz is a force to be reckoned with.

“He’s a very talented boxer, a very fast boxer. I think Jamaine Ortiz will be a big problem for any fighter in our weight class.”