Devin Haney took some time to chat with Fight Hype about his announced fight against Vasiliy Lomachenko, and why he thinks Vasiliy Lomachenko should’ve faced him when he was calling him out years ago. At this point Haney says he’s only matured and gotten better and stronger, and that Lomachenko will only get worse beating at this point that he would’ve when he first called him out to fight. Check out some of what Haney had to say below.
Haney on the importance of facing Lomachenko
“This is a fight that I’ve always wanted since I was 19, 20 years old. I’ve been calling (out) Loma when he did look unbeatable, when they were saying he’s the matrix and the #1 pound-for-pound and this and that. I was calling him out and he went the franchise route and whatever, and people said I was just bluffing, I didn’t really want to fight him.
“But it just shows you how much I really wanted to fight him because at this point in my career I don’t have to fight him and I’m choosing to fight him. So that shows you what I say is real, I don’t just call out guys and don’t fight ‘em.”
On if becoming undisputed was more important to him than cleaning out the division and fighting all the top names
“At the end of the day, I got the undisputed title now so I want to knock ‘em down one by one. Of course everybody knows it’s hard for me to make the weight, it’s not the easiest for me to make the weight, but I’m sacrificing to fight somebody that I’ve been wanting to fight for a long time, somebody that they said was — I don’t know how exactly it was said — but the closest thing to Muhammad Ali.
“I’m choosing to stay at the weight class and fight him. And we don’t know what’s next. We gotta see. I may go up in weight, I may not. We gotta see how I feel in this fight, we gotta see how my weight cut goes and how everything goes. But it’s definitely up in the air, I haven’t made my decision yet.”
On if he believes this fight was delayed by Lomachenko’s side to compromise him as he goes through Ramadan
“I wouldn’t say it was really up to Loma on deciding when the fight was. It was mostly the network and my promoter and all that. I don’t think Loma really had a say in when the fight was. I think if it was in March, he was willing to fight in March. But I don’t know, I really don’t know. But I wanted to fight in March, I wanted to be able to do my weight cut while I wasn’t out the ring as long.
“I wanted to be able to do Ramadan — even though I am doing Ramadan while I’m in camp - but I wanted to be comfortable and be able to still do train two or three times a day comfortably. But it is what it is.”
On how camp has been progressing
“Every camp I feel stronger and stronger. My body’s maturing, I’m getting bigger, getting stronger, I’m getting older, so my mastery is coming in at the end of the day...that’s why a long time ago I said Loma needs to fight me now because it’s only gonna get worse. And now he’s fighting me, 2023, and they will see. The world will see, finally. What I would’ve did to him, it’s gonna be even worse for him this time.”
Loading comments...