Team Haney Willing to Go Above and Beyond to Make Kambosos Fight
WBC lightweight champion Devin Haney (27-0, 15 KO’s) is adamant he’s ready to fight the best to show that he’s the man at 135 pounds. Unfortunately, the 24-year-old has yet to land a signature fight to show and prove his worth and value.
In particular, he badly wants to face unified world lightweight champion George Kambosos Jr (20-0, 10 KO’s). In attendance for Haney’s win over Jorge Linares in December of 2021, Kambosos expressed a strong interest in facing Haney, so long as the WBC champ is willing to travel to his home country of Australia to make it happen.
Saying he’ll go anywhere, negotiation discussions began. However, it now seems talks have stalled. Kambosos is now leaning towards accepting an offer to face former undisputed 135-pound champ Vasyl Lomachenko on June 5.
ONLY ONE FIGHT TO BE MADE AT 135
Speaking to Thaboxingvoice, Haney’s father/trainer, Bill Haney, talked about what went wrong. As he explained, they did everything possible on their behalf to make it happen. While Bill Haney gave Lomachenko respect, a showdown between his son and Kambosos is the fight at 135.
“I say that you talk about a great fighter in Lomachenko. He’s stood the test of time […] He hasn’t fought a whole lot of fights, but he’s a 33-year-old fighter. Devin is 23.
When you talk about just fairness, […] a line that we consider to be a credible line to a world championship or let alone undisputed in history; when you talk about that […] there’s no other fight out there to be made other than George Kambosos and Devin Haney […] it’s just no reason for it not to happen.”
WILLING TO TAKE THE EXTRA STEP
According to Bill Haney, it’s not about being bigger or more popular than Lomachenko. It’s simply about Kambosos living up to his word. Host Nestor Gibbs noted Team Kambosos claims that Haney outpriced themselves. Bill pushed hard against that argument, stating he was willing to give money out of his pocket.
“Listen, Devin Haney will take less than Vasyl Lomanchenko. We’ll accept less of everything than Vasyl Lomachneko. We will take that deal, and I’ll give him some money. […] I’ll pay and I’m not talking about small money. […] I’m Bill Haney. I’m representing Devin Haney Promotions, and I’m saying on the behalf of us, we’ll pay more.”
Father Haney feels certain media members are pushing a narrative that is untrue and unfair. He explained to host Nestor Gibbs they went the extra mile, and their offer was more than fair.
The Haney’s have a business relationship with Matchroom promotions. According to Bill, they never received an official offer from Kambosos’ promoter, Lou DiBella, and DiBella is no longer returning his phone calls. Some cynics will claim Bill Haney is giving only his side of the story. But you must ask, where is the pushback of these claims from DiBella?
Their bottom line for Haney is they want to fight George Kambosos, hard-stop. Nothing else mattered. If the fight doesn’t happen, it’s not because of anything they didn’t do.
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By: Michael Wilson Jr.
