By Dan Ambrose: Devin Haney wants Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis to call him out because he believes that the WBA secondary lightweight champion is avoiding him at all costs. Haney (24-0, 15 KOs) says Davis has been labeling him as a “clout-chaser” because he’s expressed interest in wanting to fight him.
WBC 135-lb champion Haney feels that being called a “clout-chaser” by Tank Davis (23-0, 22 KOs) and other fighters are code for them not wanting to fight him.
So instead of them being upfront about them not wanting to face him in the ring, they’re dismissive of him by calling him a “clout-chaser.’
Once Haney has been labeled, it’s more acceptable for the fighters to continue to ignore him.
Haney, 21, is DARING Tank Davis to call him out because he once he does, he’s not going to accept the fight right away rather than returning the favor by calling him a “clout-chaser.’
Devin is looking to put a fight together with former IBF/WBA featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa (30-3, 18 KOs) for the next title defense of his WBC lightweight title.
Haney says Tank looked horrible sparring
“The best person on his resume is [Yuriorkis] Gamboa, and Gamboa had one foot, and he went 12 rounds,” said Haney to Fighthype on Gervonta Davis. “Other than that, who else can you name? [Jose] Pedraza.
“Who else can you name? At this point in my career, I’m looking to fight Gamboa, and they’ve got me blowing him out of the water. It’s not even any competition with Gamboa and me. So it’s like how he can say anything?
“Has he fought anybody? Did he say I haven’t fought anybody? Who has he fought? We were mandatories for two weeks, and then he went the WBA and fought for a secondary [lightweight] title, so he has no room to talk about nothing,” said Haney about Tank Davis.
“I just watched you spar too, and you looked horrible,” said Haney about Tank Davis. “The dude is on a weight loss program. The dude goes to camp just to lose weight. That’s it.”
You can’t expect Tank, 25, to be in the best shape at the beginning of his camps because he tends to pack on weight in between fights. Haney points out that eventually, Tank will have problems making weight as he gets older.
If Tank keeps gaining and losing weight like he’s been going his entire career, he’ll reach a point in the not too distant future where he can’t make weight any longer.
At that point, he’ll need to move up to 140 or even 147. Those weight classes that Tank’s limited 5’5″ height won’t support.
Devin resents being called “clout-chaser”
“He says I’m a ‘clout chaser’ because I called him out to fight.’ Because someone calls you out, it’s not like I’m not ranked in the top 10, or I’m a fighter with a bad record that you can’t gain anything from fighting. If I was that type of fighter, I would say, ‘yeah, I’m a clout chaser.’ I can’t be clout chasing by calling you out,” Haney continued in talking about wanting to fight Gervonta.
“You have everything to gain just like I do. That’s how the boxing game has turned into. If you call somebody out, you’re clout chasing. He [Tank Davis] called Ryan [Garcia] out.
“Are you clout chasing because you called Ryan out? Ryan is younger than him. Why are you calling Ryan out? You’re clout-chasing him. Exactly [Ryan isn’t a champion]. When Teofimo calls me out, I don’t say, ‘Teofimo is clout-chasing.’
“It ain’t none of that. He’s [Tank] the only weird that does that s***. Nobody else does that. None of the other champions do that. I called Lomachenko out 100 times, and I didn’t hear Lomachenko say one thing about clout-chasing.
“He’ll [Tank Davis] say everything but that he wants to fight me. People need to read between the lines and separate the real from the fake,” said Devin.
What Haney is failng to understand is that he’s not popular enough right now for the talented guys or even the less talented ones to want to fight him. In other words, Haney is more trouble than he’s worth.
It’s better for Tank to delay fighting Haney until he has a large following. If Tank fights him now, he won’t make money against him, and then it won’t be profitable later because he’ll have already been exposed.
Tank using camp as an early fat farm
“That’s what it looks like to me. He’s going to camp to lose weight,” said Haney about Tank Davis in him starting camp already for his fight against Leo Santa Cruz on October 24. “He’s not starting camp to sharpen his tools.
“That’s what happens when you f*** off all this time, and you don’t get in the gym. He’s going into camp to lose weight. That’s the fight for him.
“Some fighters can get away with it [gaining weight between fights], but you can only get away with it for some long before it catches up to you. I think he does aerobic training.
“We don’t do that. We go into a gym to sharpen up our tools.
“I hope that he makes weight [for Santa Cruz],” Haney continued in talking about Gervonta’s weight problems. “I wouldn’t wish that on nobody.
“Let him go in there and fight and still be a champion until one day until one day we can get it on. I think he will make weight. He’s got the dedication, but I wouldn’t say the discipline, but we got to see.
“The way he’s going, he better make weight. How many weeks out he’s been wearing a sauna suit in the gym. He’d better make weight.
“I don’t think sauna suits work. Right before a weigh-in, the last couple of pounds, you put on a sauna suit. But I wouldn’t wear a sauna suit this far out,” Haney continued.
Tank is always going to have problems with his weight because he’s short and he puts weight on easily. Of course, Davis doesn’t help himself that he lets his weight get out of hand in between fights, but he’s going to have problems even if he trains hard in between contests.
Is Gervonta avoiding Haney?
“I don’t know if that would even work because I think he would just keep avoiding the question and say some of the wall s***,” said Haney when asked whether it would work for the media to keep asking Tank about when he plans on fighting him.
“He would say the most off the wall s*** to try and avoid it, so I don’t think that’s going to work. Leonard Ellerbe is going to say some off the wall s*** too. These dudes aren’t stupid. They’re in cahoots.
“They’re going to avoid that as much as they can, but as time goes, we’re going to see. If I’m clout-chasing, then pull my card. Pull my card. Try and step up a fight with me and let’s see. If I’m clout-chasing, then I’m not going to take it.
“Some of these guys, I realize what it is. They can’t talk that well. So with them not being able to talk that well, they’re not really intelligent like that.
“So they’re not able to talk like an adult, so they’ll say, ‘Oh, he’s a clout-chaser,’ you know? That’s all they can really say. They can’t really talk; they can’t elaborate because they’re really not that intelligent,” said Haney.
Tank is likely following the instructions from his promoters at Mayweather Promotions by not accepting a call out by Haney. Floyd Mayweather Jr let his fight with Manny Pacquiao marinate for six years before he finally pulled the trigger on it in 2015.
Although some boxing fans think Mayweather avoided the fight with Pacquiao out of fear, the fact he let it marinate. Mayweather likely waits as long as he can before he lets Tank fight Haney or any of the dangerous guys like Vasily Lomachenko or Teofimo Lopez.
No one wants to fight Devin
“Ryan fought Fonseca, and he’s not as good as Gamboa,” said Haney. “Gamboa is much better than Fonseca, but he gained momentum off of that. A lot of people want to see me fight Javier Fortuna.
“Javier Fortuna doesn’t want to fight me. He’s still trying to pursue a fight with Linares. I reached out, and I want to make the fight happen, but he wants to fight Linares still. That’s the fight that he wants.
“I don’t understand how a guy would want to fight for a Diamond belt instead of fighting for a world title. I never understood this. Some pull my card and show me. If me and Tank fought, it would be the biggest payday that he ever received, or I ever received.
“If me and Ryan fought, it would be the biggest. If me and Luke Campbell fought, it would be the biggest. If me and Teofimo fought, it would be the biggest, and if me and Loma fought, it would be the biggest. So I don’t understand it,” said Haney.
According to Haney, Ryan Garcia told him that he’s not going to fight him now so that their match can marinate. Lomachenko is probably in the same boat. If he was interested in facing Haney, he wouldn’t have accepted the WBC Franchise title in 2019.
Haney doesn’t punch hard enough for him to scare away the top fighters at 135, and his hand speed isn’t blazing fast like Mayweather’s used to be.
Teofimo not as tough as he acts?
“He’s real tough on the Internet, but in person, we saw a really different Teofimo,” said Haney. “I asked him about all that, and the energy was different. Ryan did say something about that,” said Devin about Garcia, telling him that they would fight in the future.
“You’ve got to respect him, but all this ‘clout-chasing s***,’ it’s the new-age fighters. Back in the day, that word didn’t even exist. ‘Clout-chasing.’
“The person that loses first is the one that’s going to want to fight me. Watch,” said Haney in talking about the fighter that loses among this group, Lomachenko, Ryan Garcia, Tank Davis, and Teofimo Lopez, wanting to fight him.
“They’ll have lost, and it won’t be worth nothing like that.
They all have the possibility [of losing]. This is boxing, and anything can happen. If he [Teofimo] loses, he’ll say, ‘I’ll fight him. I’ll stay at 135 just to fight him.’
Watch. He’s going to want to get another shot at the title. He might move up to 140, but he won’t move up without saying he wants to fight me. Watch.
“Even if he moves up, he’ll say, ‘Oh, I’ll fight Devin Haney,'” Devin said about Teofimo.
Teofimo is already scheduled to fight a guy more talented than Haney in Lomachenko. If Teofimo loses that fight, he’ll probably move up to 140 to go after the champions in that weight class.
Haney is on the other side of the fence with him fighting for DAZN, and it probably wouldn’t work for Teofimo to try and set-up a fight against him.