Negotiations to stage a fight between Devin Haney and Gary Russell Jr. are getting quite animated on social media, especially since Russell has just come out to claim that he refused to sign a term sheet because Team Haney doesn’t have pre-approval from DAZN to air the fight.
Russell came back to social media to tell the world that he was sent a ‘blank check’ (which was the wrong terminology for what he was trying to describe), but was apparently alluding to the fact that the proposal for the fight was still dependent on Matchroom and DAZN signing off. Russell wants those entities to sign off first, and then have Team Haney come back to him.
So getting up early this morning with ‘all gas, no brakes’ was Bill Haney, the father of Devin Haney who also represents him in business matters. Check out some excerpts of Haney’s rant below...
“Lyin’ ass Mr. Gary Russell...you got the audacity to question or not is DAZN and Matchroom behind the fight. You got the audacity to say a term sheet is a contract. Those are the terms of the fight, sir! We tapped you on the shoulder. DAZN and Matchroom didn’t. You know we came looking for you, Mr. Russell!
“And I told you before we got down, I said ‘Hey, if Al (Haymon) is interested in putting up the money for you and you getting a world title,’ you said ‘Al’s not interested.’ He said ‘If they’ll put up the money, then you wit it.’ You said you didn’t want mine, you said you didn’t want DHP money. Yeah, you didn’t want that! We told we got $1.5M for you personally.
“You said you didn’t like that. You didn’t want to deal with us with terms of the $1.5M, so guess what? We found somebody that would agree to your terms. Your terms!”
Haney’s video cut off before then returning with a lot more to say...
“Yeah, excuse me for getting off, ‘cause I keep waiting for a call from Gary n’ them to say he just realized what the fuck he just said and he was out of pocket.
“Everyone needs an approval from a network. As promoters how would I present it to the network if he’s not even agreeing to the shit?”
A little while later, Haney said that they’re not letting Russell get out of this fight, one way or the other...
“We not getting another opponent! Gary Russell’s the opponent! We not moving on. Because if DAZN don’t approve it, then Showtime approve it!...You are the opponent and you will not get out of this. And if don’t look right, you write the shit in and send it back to us!...write the shit down and send it over! N***a or stop cappin’, lil’ ass fraud!”