Devin Haney has decided to stick around the 135 lb division for a little while longer after his victory over George Kambosos Jr last Saturday night at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Australia.
Haney (29-0 15 KOs) feels there are a lot of big fights and money to be made at 135, which makes it worthwhile for him to stay put rather than move up to 140 and fight far less popular fighters at great risk.
In his rematch with former unified lightweight champion Kambosos (20-2, 10 KOs), Haney defeated him by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores of 119-109, 118-110, and 118-110.
The second win for Haney over Kambosos may have been as good as it gets for him, considering that the potential of him losing repeatedly goes up exponentially after this cakewalk.
Unless Haney has a different view of what he considers to be a ‘big fight,’ he’s going to need to defend his undisputed lightweight championship against these fighters for him to make the big money that he’s hoping to get:
- Vasyl Lomachenko
- Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis
- Shakur Stevenson
- Ryan Garcia
- Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero
- Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz
Top Rank wants Haney to defend against former three-division world champion Lomachenko next, and that’s going to be a tough fight. Lomachenko, although he’s getting older at 34, he still has the skills to beat Haney in a convincing fashion.
What’s interesting is Haney failed to mention Lomachenko’s name at the post-fight press conference, and he wasn’t talking about him during the build-up to the fight this week.
What that means is Haney might choose to reject the Lomachenko fight outright and tell his promoters at Top Rank that he wants another easy fight like the ones he’s been having against Kambosos, Joseph Diaz Jr, and Jorge Linares.
Let’s face it, if Top Rank matches Haney against Lomachenko or Shakur Stevenson, he likely loses. So if Haney wants to keep winning, he must fight Isaac Cruz or Rolly next because those guys would struggle as Kambosos did with his boxing skills.
“We got to go back to my team, Bob Arum, and see what’s next,” said Haney at the post-fight press conference last Saturday after his win over Kambosos.
“I want to go back to my team. There are a lot of big fights at 135. There’s a lot of big money at 135. We’ll see what’s next, but it’s likely for me to stay.
“I feel that the right hand was what won me the fight tonight,” said Haney. “My dad came up with a hell of a game plan, I let my hands go, and it worked. I knew he was tough. He took some big shots. I had him hurt. One of the rounds, I hurt him good, but he’s a tough competitor. He showed that he didn’t come to lie down,” said Haney.
“Devin has so much in his arsenal, and one thing he said is he was going to beat George at his fight in his hometown,” said Bill Haney. “I said, ‘Are you sure, Dev?’ ‘I want to beat him at his fight.’
“Shout out to George and Jim Kambosos. Georg is a hell of a fighter, and he has a whole lot of fight left in him,” said Bill.
