By Chris Williams: Devin Haney fired back at IBF lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez’s claim that his management made an offer to his promoter Eddie Hearn for a fight, and they still haven’t heard back.
WBC champion Haney (24-0, 15 KOs) is labeling Teofimo (15-0, 12 KOs) as a liar, and he thinks he might be a little crazy in the head.
Teofimo, 22, needs an opponent now for his next fight because WBA/WBC Franchise/WBO champion Vasily Lomachenko is in Ukraine, and he can’t come over to the United States because of the travel ban.
If there is interest in Haney’s part, then he needs to contact his promoter Eddie Hearn and have him start the negotiations with Top Rank.
There should be an e-mail trail
When you get two fighters saying different things about fight offers, it leaves you in the position where there’s no way of knowing which guy is telling the truth.
One way of finding out the truth is if Teofimo can produce the copies of the e-mails sent by his promoters at Top Rank to Haney’s promoter Hearn of Matchroom Boxing.
Another way would be for Hearn to show the media the e-mails sent to him by Teofimos promoters at Top Rank.
Teofima is a liar & im starting to think that he’s crazy he actually believes these lies he tells 🤥
— Devin Haney (@Realdevinhaney) May 14, 2020
It’s tough to believe that Top Rank promoter Bob Arum would be willing to put a fight together between Teofimo and Haney. Why would Arum make this move when he still hasn’t made the in house fight between Lomachenko and Teofimo?
Teofimo = too valuable for Arum to risk him losing
Arum likes to do a lot of in-house fights involving his Top Rank fighters, and it’s entirely out of character for him to want to put his favorite fighter Teofimo in a risky battle against Haney. In the past, Arum has shown no interest in matching Lomachenko against Haney.
It’s one thing Arum letting Teofimo fight fellow Top Rank stable fighter Lomachenko and an entirely different thing to let him face Haney. Even if Teofimo is humiliated by Lomachenko and forced to quit like so many others, it’s still a win-win situation for Arum.
He promotes Lomachenko, and it’ll increase his popularity to some extent with the casual and hardcore boxing fans.
Lomachenko is supposedly the best fighter in the lightweight division. If Arum isn’t willing to let Lomachenko fight Haney, then it stands to reason he won’t let Teofimo anywhere near him.
Teofimo is the equivalent of the Crown Jewels for Arum and Top Rank. He’s the future for Top Rank, and if he loses, then it would be bad for them. T
hat’s why it’s beyond any stretch of the imagination that Arum and Top Rank would contact Matchroom boxing to attempt to negotiate a Teofimo vs. Haney fight. You can one step further than that. You can argue that Arum will NEVER let Teofimo fight Haney during his career.
Haney DENIES offer was made
“Never in life,” said Haney when asked if an offer was sent to his promoter by Teofimo’s promoters. “Don’t forget I was already in a tournament with this clown. These fighters don’t have the work ethic to beat me. I promise time will tell,” said Haney.
It sounds realistic what Haney says about no offer has come in from Top Rank for him to fight Teofimo. Why would Haney lie about that? He’s been chasing Lomachenko, Ryan Garcia, and Gervonta Davis, all of which are better fighters than Teofimo.
Teofimo needs to have a long talk with Arum to find out if an offer was made to Haney or not. If this is something that Teofimo is making up out of the blue to clout chase, it’s sad.
