By Sean Jones: Devin Haney is beginning to lose patience with four-belt lightweight champion George Kambosos Jr. due to him taking his time agreeing to the contract offer from his promoters for a June 4th fight in Australia.
Haney, 23, wants Kambosos to sign for the fight already so he can begin preparing for a fight that he and his promoter Eddie Hearn believe will turn him into an overnight superstar.
WBC 135-lb champion Haney (27-0, 15 KOs) knows he’s in a position of strength to get the fight with the 28-year-old Kambosos due to the Australian’s original choice for his June 4th fight, Vasyl Lomachenko, is at home in Ukraine defending his country in reaction to the Russian invasion.
Kambosos is reportedly waiting to find out from the former three-division world champion Lomachenko (16-2, 11 KOs) and his promoters at Top Rank if he’ll be able to return to face him on June 4th in Melbourne, Australia.
With the situation looking bleak in terms of the Russian-Ukrainian war coming to a quick end, it’s not looking optimistic that Lomachenko will be able to take the fight with Kambosos in June.
“Team Kambosos has had the offer for quite some time now. Why the cold feet all of a sudden?” said Haney on Twitter this week.
Interestingly, Kambosos uncharacteristically failed to respond to this Tweet from Haney, which tells you all you need to know about his lack of desire to take this fight.
If you’re Haney, you need to see what time it is and recognize that there’s no job offer for him here and move on already. Kambosos is ignoring Haney.
Look at it this way. If that same Tweet came from Vasyl Lomachenko or Ryan Garcia, Kambosos would have fired back immediately, letting them know to hold their horses and be patient.
You can’t blame Kambosos Jr for taking his time mulling over the offer from Team Haney because it’s a terrible fight for him on paper.
Haney is a purely defensive fighter, who will be jabbing, moving, and holding all night long against Kambosos, preventing him from landing more than a trickle of his best shots.
The sneaky right hand that Kambosos dropped Teofimo Lopez with in the first round of their fight last November won’t be there for him against a defensive wizard like Haney.
At best, Kambosos will land occasional jabs and will be limited to nailing Haney with punches in the many clinches.
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— Devin Haney (@Realdevinhaney) March 12, 2022
Kambosos and his promoter Lou DiBella would be better off taking an interim fight against a fringe contender while they wait for the picture to become clearer on the Lomachenko fight.
A great backup option for Kambosos and DiBella would be to defend against Ryan Garcia, provided he wins his April 9th comeback fight Emmanuel Tagoe at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
If Ryan wins that fight, Kambosos should face him in the summer in Australia, considering it would be a massive contest that would attract a lot of new subscribers on DAZN.
In the meantime, Kambosos should take a stay-busy interim match on June 4th against one of these contenders:
Chris Colbert – *130-lb contender
Maxi Hughes
Richard Commey
Yvan Mendy
Javier Fortuna
Masayoshi Nakatani
Francesco Patera
Shuichiro Yoshino
Sean Jones wouldn’t mind seeing Kambosos and Colbert mix it up on June 4th. That would be a fun fight to see the blue-haired Colbert trying to outbox Kambosos with his blazing fast hand speed.