The WBO featherweight title fight between Gary Russell Jr. and Vasyl Lomachenko offers a marked contrast in styles.

It's not so much that they're vastly different in the ring, but how they've gotten to where they want to be.

Both men are 26 – Lomachenko is four months older – and both are among the most physically gifted fighters in the world.

Russell has chosen a slow, guarded approach. He's 24-0 with 14 knockouts and has been chosen as Prospect of the Year by many media outlets, including Yahoo Sports.

I believe, deeply, that Russell will become a major figure in boxing, but part of that is a leap of faith based on the fast hands he shows, his punching accuracy and his sense of timing and distance in the ring. However, it can be a challenge assessing those qualities since he's fought primarily a bunch of tomato cans.

Russell's been regularly derided for his lack of quality opposition, but the undeniable fact is that he's fighting Lomachenko on Showtime on Saturday at the StubHub Center in Carson, Calif., without ever having shared the ring with a top 10 contender previously.

Lomachenko has taken the opposite approach. This is a guy who, after going 396-1 and winning gold medals at the Olympics in Beijing in 2008 and in London in 2012, wanted to fight for a world title in his first pro bout.

That couldn't quite be arranged. Instead he met Orlando Salido for the WBO featherweight belt in his second pro fight in San Antonio in March.

View photos Vasyl Lomachenko, left, struggled in a close loss to the experienced Orlando Salido, right, in March. (AP Photo) More

It was obvious early in that bout that Lomachenko was, by far, the more gifted fighter. But it was equally obvious that Salido understood the pro game far better and used that knowledge to throw off Lomachenko.

The result was that Lomachenko's long winning streak ended via split decision.

But he got a reprieve, and on Saturday, in his next bout, he'll meet Russell for the belt once again.

That leads to the question of which path is best.

The long, slow path taken by Russell is far more traditional, though Russell's management team may have skipped a few important factors.

When Floyd Mayweather turned pro after the 1996 Olympics, he was fed some no-hopers in his early outings. But matchmaker Bruce Trampler did a brilliant thing in pushing Mayweather along. He exposed him to every style he could possibly find.

Mayweather fought guys who were fast and guys who hit hard. He felt lefties and righties and tall guys and muscular guys. When it looked like he might one day face Diego Corrales, the power-puncher who was unusually tall for 130-pounds, Trampler paired Mayweather with veteran Tony Pep. Pep was actually taller than Corrales, and more experienced.

Mayweather won the world title in the fight after he beat Pep, and his own tremendous natural ability led him there. But he was matched expertly and was ready for anything by the time his title shot came around.

Russell got rounds and paychecks, but he didn't face nearly such an eclectic group, and the matchmaking wasn't as precise.

The most important experiences Russell got were in the gym, working with his father, Gary Russell Sr., though the fighter isn't complaining and simply shrugs at the critics of his opposition.

"Oh, man, there's going to be criticism anyway," Russell said. "My Dad told me you could never please everybody. You know we wanted to get to maybe 23- 0, you know 22-, 23-0 before we competed for a world title. And one of the reasons why is based on the fact that you can be an elite amateur, but when you go into professional [boxing], it's a completely different world.

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