By Sean Jones: Shakur Stevenson isn’t quite sure who would win in a unification fight at lightweight between champions Devin Haney and Teofimo Lopez.
Former WBO featherweight champion Stevenson is quick to defend WBO lightweight champion Haney (25-0, 15 KOs) from the many critics who weren’t impressed with what they saw from him in his 12 round decision win over 38-year-old Yuriorkis Gamboa last week on November 7th.
Haney, 21, had talked about wanting to beat former IBF/WBA featherweight champion Gamboa (30-4, 18 KOs) in a better fashion than Terence Crawford and Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis, but he failed to do so. Devin did beat Gamboa by a lopsided 12 round decision, but it was a boring match.
Haney didn’t look as talented as Tank, Teofimo, or Ryan Garcia with that performance.
Many boxing fans feel that Haney’s stock dropped off badly with his performance against Gamboa, and almost none of them think he’d beat Tank or Teofimo.
Shakur talks Haney vs. Teofimo Lopez
“A lot of people watched the fight last and said, ‘Devin’s not that good,’ but if you pay attention to the fight, Devin is a really skilled fighter, and it’s not like he’s a bum or he had a big performance,” said Shakur Stevenson to Fighthype when asked if he thinks Devin Haney can beat Teofimo Lopez.
Teo and Tank are coming off of big performances, and they’re trying to make it like Devin can’t hang with those dudes. But styles make fights. You don’t know what Teofmo would do with Devin because he would try and make him miss.
“But you don’t know what Devin would do with Teofimo too because that power might be something he’s never seen before. The speed might be something that’s different. It’s all up in the air with those types of fighters. We’ll see.
“Don’t count Devin out. He [Haney] didn’t get hit last week. It was a good performance. He was sharp, and he landed a lot of good punches. He was real smart.
“Boxing is the sport of hit and not get hit, and he executed that perfectly. Just because it was a big knockout or a super flashy performance, I thought it was a really good performance. Styles make fights.
“I can’t count Devin out. I don’t agree with that. We’re real boxers, and we don’t take a lot of punches. We’re going to keep working, and we’re going to show the world a lot more stuff,” said Haney.
It would have been better if Haney had kept his mouth shut in the lead up to the Gamboa fight because he put pressure on himself by talking about how he would beat him easy.
Stevenson says Canelo vs. Plant is 50-50 match-up
“Caleb Plant is a hell of a boxer. They don’t how good Caleb Plant is,” said Haney when asked his thoughts on Plant facing Canelo Alvarez. “Canelo is one of my favorites in boxing.
“I think it’s a 50-50 fight. Caleb has got a lot of stuff that people don’t understand. We don’t know if Canelo can handle Caleb’s boxing skills, just like we don’t know if he can handle Canelo’s. It’s going to be a good fight,” said Stevenson.
Canelo vs. Caleb Plant would be a great fight, but we’re not going to see it soon. Canelo’s next fight is expected to be against Callum Smith. If Canelo wins that match, he’ll likely take on some of Matchroom’s other fighters like Billy Joe Saunders, John Ryder, or Gennady Golovkin.