Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says he’d like to make a Devin Haney vs. Vasyl Lomachenko fight next for the undisputed lightweight championship if Loma wins his fight this Saturday, October 29th, against Jamaine Ortiz at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Haney’s dad, Bill, will be ringside for Lomachenko’s fight with Ortiz (16-0-1, 8 KOs), and they’ll have a sit-down conversation about Devin’s future.
If Haney chooses not to fight Lomachenko (16-2, 11 KOs), Arum says Shakur Stevenson would be an option for Devin, or he can move up to 140.
However, you got to believe that if Haney wants no part in fighting Lomachenko, the same will apply to him wanting nothing to do with Shakur as well.
Those guys are more technical than Haney (29-0, 15 KOs), and they don’t get hit as much as he typically does. Despite Haney being too good for George Kambosos Jr in their two fights, he got hit a lot by him.
Haney, 23, is having a hard time making the 135-lb limit, as many boxing fans saw. Devin looked like a living zombie at the weigh-in for his rematch with Kambosos on October 16th, and after he rehydrated, he resembled a welterweight.
In the last four months, Haney appears to have grown more, as he wasn’t nearly as drained looking at the weigh-in for his first fight against Kambosos last June.
“Haney proved that he belongs, that he’s one of the best lightweights in the world if not the best, and his father Bill will be here [at Madison Square Garden in New York to watch Lomachenko,” said Bob Arum to Fight Hub TV about the plans for Vasyl Lomachenko if he beats Jamaine Ortiz on Saturday.
“We’ll all sit down afterward and talk about the future. I think Haney and Lomachenko would be tremendous, but so would Shakur against either of them. So there are a lot of great fights that we can make in the lightweight division.
“Yeah, in a perfect scenario,” said Arum when asked if the ideal scenario would be for Haney to defend his undisputed lightweight championship against Lomachenko next.
“But Haney may decide he wants to go up to 140. He’s a big kid; he doesn’t want to. So, again, you know, we’re all friends. We’ll sit down and work things out to everybody’s mutual satisfaction,” said Arum.
