Bob Arum says he’s confident that Teofimo Lopez beats Devin Haney easily if the two of them ever fight.
IBF/WBA/WBC Franchise/WBO lightweight champion Teofimo (16-0, 12 KOs) recently said that he plans on sending out offers to Haney and his IBF mandatory George Kambosos Jr for his next fight in April or May.
Arum says there haven’t been any offer sheets sent out to Haney or anyone yet. He says Teofimo isn’t the one the sends the offers out; his Top Rank company does.
The fighter that Arum plans on trying to negotiate with for Teofimo’s next fight is Kambosos (19-0, 10 KOs), not Haney. There’s excellent money to be made for Teofimo against Kambosos, which makes it an ideal title defense
WBC regular lightweight champion Haney (25-0, 15 KOs) is someone that Teofimo could face in the future before he moves up to 140, but we’ll have to see.
Arum: No offer sheet sent to Haney
“We didn’t send an offer sheet to Devin Haney or any other fighter in the world,” said Arum to Barbershop Conversations when asked if he’d made an offer to Haney for him to face Teofimo Lopez.
“There was no offer sheet sent out. The Teofimo family doesn’t send out offer sheets. I mean, we make the proposal as a promoter.
“There was no offer sheet sent out to anybody. What we’re talking about now is making a fight in Australia with Kambosos, which is the IBF mandatory.
“Yes, he has the three regular belts from the other organizations and the Franchise belt from the WBC, and the WBC says he’s the undisputed champion,” said Arum.
Oddly, Teofimo was talking about sending offers out because that’s Arum’s job, not his.
It could be that Teofimo was name-dropping to get some cheap publicity by getting boxing fans riled up about a fight between him and Haney, even though it has no chance of happening.
The guys that Teofimo should be targeting at 135 before he leaves the division are Ryan Garcia, Gervonta Davis, and a rematch with Vasily Lomachenko. They’ll bring more interest from boxing fans than a fight with Haney.
Teofimo beats Haney
“I think Teofimo beats Haney and beats him fairly easily, but that isn’t a factor in making the fight,” said Arum. “I think with Teofimo, all of those three guys [Ryan Garcia, Tank Davis, and Vasily Lomachenko], I would make him a big favorite. I wouldn’t hesitate to make any of those three fights.
“With a fighter, I’m only going to put him in a fight that I believe he can win. I don’t put a fighter in where he has no chance where he’s just in there for a payday for him and me,” said Arum in revealing how he chooses opponents for his fighters.
“That goes back to [Mayweather Promotions CEO] Leonard Ellerbe with what he was trying to say; it’s risk-reward. Let’s say a fighter has a 40% chance of winning.
“So he’s like in your mind an underdog. If the reward is great, you make that fight. It’s risk-reward,” said Arum.
Just going by how Teofimo has looked in his recent fights with Vasily Lomachenko and Richard Commey, it’s highly likely that he would be too much for the light-hitting Haney.
Devin Haney is like a slower, weaker version of Floyd Mayweather Jr. Haney doesn’t have the pop in his punches to handle a fighter like Teofimo.
Haney’s lack of power will put him at the mercy of Teofimo when or if that fight happens. Teofimo might knockout Haney if that fight happens right now before Devin develops his man-strength.
One drawback of Arum wanting to match Teofimo against Kambosos is he could miss out on fighting the more popular guys in the division if he moves up to 140 at the end of the year.
Lomachenko staying at 135
“I’m not sure. He keeps saying he wants to fight at 135, and not go down to 130,” said Arum about Vasily Lomachenko. “But we’ll see, you know.
“No, he has no problems making the weight. Maybe he thinks there aren’t enough challenges at 130, but there is. There’s the Berchelt – Valdez winner, and there’s a huge fight with Shakur Stevenson, once Shakur becomes a 130-pound champion.
“So he has some big fights at 130, really big fights, and that’s what I’ll be talking to him about,” said Arum about Lomachenko.
“Yeah, that can be done down the road,” said Arum when asked about his thoughts on matching Lomachenko against Gary Russell Jr in a rematch.
“Right now, I want to put him [Lomachenko] into a title fight, and I don’t think he can make 126 anymore.
“It’s a decent fight but Lomachenko wouldn’t do it because he only wants to fight for a title.
“What am I going to do? So if Lomachenko wins a world title at 130, he would love to give Russell a rematch,” said Arum.
The former three-division world champion Lomachenko (14-2, 10 KOs) may have a change of mind about staying at 135. He’s being frozen out by Teofimo, who has already let the boxing world know that he won’t give Lomachenko a rematch.
Teofimo even went so far as to predict that the other top lightweights, Haney, Ryan Garcia, and Tank Davis, won’t fight Lomachenko because he’ll beat them.
Teo is probably right about Loma beating those three. There’s no point in Lomachenko remaining at lightweight if he’s not going to be able to get a fight against any of those fighters. They could put Lomachenko on ignore for years and wait until he gets old before fighting him.
He’s 33 now, and he’s not the same fighter he was five years ago. If he’s forced to wait three to four years before he’s given a shot at the top four at 135, he’ll be too old to beat them.
If Lomachenko moves down to super featherweight now, he’ll have these fighters to face potentially:
- Oscar Valdez
- Miguel Berchelt
- Shakur Stevenson
- Carl Frampton
- Jamel Herring
- Joseph Diaz Jr
- Chris Colbert
- Roger Gutierrez
What Arum isn’t saying is that Lomachenko will likely be avoided at 130 by the top guys as well. Yeah, Loma will probably be able to get fights against Valdez, Berchelt, and Stevenson, but that might be it.