Devin Haney says he’s not looking past Vasily Lomachenko on May 20th for his undisputed lightweight championship title defense.
Haney (29-0, 15 KOs) states he knows what he’s up against fighting the two-time Olympic gold medalist Lomachenko (17-2, 11 KOs), who had over 400 fights during his amateur career only lost once before turning pro and getting beaten twice.
Devin & Lomachenko are headlining on ESPN PPV on May 20th at the MGM Grand Garde Arena in Las Vegas. Haney says his goal is to make this fight look “easy” to the fans by figuring out what Lomachenko is doing and neutralizing him.
What that could mean is a lot of jabbing, tying up, and moving on Haney’s part to keep Lomachenko from getting his shots off.
“I can never say it’s going to be easy work. Loma has had 400 fights from amateurs to the pros, and he’s only lost three times. So I got to be on my A-game to be #4,” said Devin Haney to Bradley Martyn’s Raw Talk.
“400 fights with just three losses, that’s extraordinary. That’s the next level. I look to be the best me and make it as easy as possible. Make it look easy and make the world think that it’s easy.
“I’m not looking past him in no way, shape, or form. Somebody can study me all day long, but I feel I’ve got so many different styles. I just make adjustments to whatever my opponent brings. It doesn’t matter how much they study me.
“It could be a totally different fighter that shows up on fight night than what you’ve been watching. Every fighter I fight, I get better. The better the competition, the better I fight. So for somebody studying me, it might be a worse a** whooping.
“I try not to do too much studying and get drawn too much into my opponent because I like to be fresh, I like to be able to make adjustments and I like to be able to think and not just focus on one thing or two things and then I’m thrown off on fight night.
“I feel like no one can beat me. We’re going for #30. 30-0 coming soon on May 20th.
“Ryan had doubt in himself,” said Haney when asked about Ryan Garcia’s loss to Gervonta Davis. “I think it got to his head when they said there was a mole in his camp, and I think he started to doubt his team, doubt himself and doubt his preparation and it showed.
“I like Ryan. I think he needs to go back to the drawing board and get his mind right, refocus, refocus on his team, and then we’ll see. Right now, Ryan is going through a lot. He’s coming off of a loss.
“It was the biggest fight of his career. I’m going into the biggest fight of my career, and I’m focused on winning. I think Ryan also jumped ahead of himself by focusing on me and thinking about what was next.
“I like that he said that he would fight me next, but he should have been focused on the task at hand. That’s not what I’m going to do. I’m going to focus on Loma on May 20th, and then we’ll see what the future holds,” said Haney.
