Haney vs Abdullaev: Full card set as fighters make weight in New York

Tomorrow night’s DAZN card from MSG’s Hulu Theater in New York is good to go, as main eventers Devin Haney and Zaur Abdullaev made weight, as did Heather Hardy and Amanda Serrano in the world title co-feature.

Haney (22-0, 14 KO) and Abdullaev (11-0, 7 KO) both came in at 134½ for their 135-pound fight, which will be for the interim WBC lightweight title, which makes the winner feel real nice as the interim title has literally zero reason to exist otherwise, and more relevantly puts the winner in line to fight Vasiliy Lomachenko down the road — or, perhaps, to be “elevated” to full titleholder status when Lomachenko is bumped to FRANCHISE CHAMPION like they did with Canelo so that Jermall Charlo could call himself the world champ. Either way the WBC gets money from multiple “champions,” which is what they care most about.

But Haney-Abdullaev is a good fight, two talents on the way up, the 20-year-old Haney in particular looking to break out as a serious player at 135, but the 25-year-old Abdullaev no slouch looking to roll over for him, either.

Ed Mulholland/Matchroom Boxing USA

Hardy (22-0, 4 KO) will defend her WBO featherweight title and another interim WBC belt will also be up for grabs against Serrano (36-1-1, 27 KO), a seven-division titleholder. Hardy, 37, and Serrano, 30, both weighed in at 125¾.

It’s a big fight for both Hardy and Serrano, obviously, and a fair amount of the crowd for the show should be there to see them. Both are New York fighters, unlike Haney, who is from San Francisco and fights out of Las Vegas, and Abdullaev, a Russian making his US debut.

Ed Mulholland/Matchroom Boxing USA

Heavyweight Michael Hunter (17-1, 12 KO) packed on a few more pounds for tomorrow’s bout, coming in at 221¼, up about six pounds from where he was for his May 25 win over Fabio Maldonado. The 31-year-old Hunter weighed in at 227 when he moved to heavyweight in April 2018, but other than that outing this is his highest weight ever.

He’ll be facing Sergey Kuzmin (15-0, 11 KO), a 32-year-old Russian who tipped the scales at 258¼. That’s Kuzmin’s highest weight since a 2016 fight with Rodney Hernandez where he weighed in at 262. He had been in the mid-240s for a run of fights from April 2017 through November of last year, but then in March came in at 255½ and had problems with Joey Dawejko, winning a majority decision.

The action starts tomorrow night at 7 pm ET on DAZN with the undercard, and the main card should go live around 9 pm ET.