Devin Haney has decided to vacate his undisputed lightweight belt, giving up his prized possessions, his IBF, WBA, WBC & WBO 135-lb straps.
Devin will now go after the 140-lb title against WBC belt-holder Regis Prograis next month on December 9th and then move up to 147 to fight for one of the belts.
Haney has physically outgrown the 135-lb division, and it’s become too difficult for him to stay in the division without putting his body through a lot of torment to get down to the limit.
We saw in Haney’s last fight against Vasily Lomachenko that he was drained at the weigh-in and sluggish during the fight.
The decision wasn’t an easy one by the 25-year-old Bay Area native Haney (30-0, 15 KOs), as he had wanted to stay at lightweight long enough to face Gervonta Davis in a mega-fight that would have created huge interest in the boxing world.
Haney states that he had no success when he attempted to arrange a fight with the 29-year-old Gervonta, a fighter carefully moved by his promoters during his decade-long career.
If Devin Had stayed at 135-lb, the only other fights in the weight class would have been against the defensive artist Shakur Stevenson, who has a non-entertaining fighting style and rematches with Vasily Lomachenko & George Kambosos Jr.
Where Haney’s lightweight titles will end up
- WBC – Shakur Stevenson
- IBF – Vasily Lomachenko vs. George Kambosos Jr winner
- WBO – possibly Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz
“I did everything at 135 that I could. The biggest fight for me was making that Gervonta Davis fight, and his side showed no interest in making the fight. I’ve outgrown the division, so now I make my quest to 140 to become a two-division champion,” said Haney to ESPN about his decision to vacate his lightweight belts.
“And after this fight, I look to become a three-division champion and move up to 147; God willing, I’m successful in this fight.”
Haney has a good chance of defeating Regis Prograis on December 9th to win the WBC 140-lb belt, but he’s not going to stay in the division to fight any of the other belt-holders, Subriel Matias, Teofimo Lopez or Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero.
Aside from WBO champion Teofimo, those aren’t fights that will make Haney the kind of money that he’s looking to get. Putting together a fight with Teofimo could prove to be a time-consuming nightmare of epic proportions for Haney, and he’s not ready to have a year or more of his career consumed trying to set up a fight with the difficult to negotiate with Teo.
