By Craig Page: Devin Haney fired back at Paulie Malignaggi tonight in response to him predicting that he’s going to duck Vasyl Lomachenko rather than fighting him next.
Earlier today, Malignaggi predicted that Haney (29-0, 15 KOs) would vacate his undisputed lightweight title instead of going along with what Top Rank wants him to do in defending against Lomachenko (16-2, 11 KOs) in his next fight.
Malignaggi says that Top Rank wants to set up a super pay-per-view fight between Lomachenko and Shakur Stevenson to build their next big star.
The idea is that Lomachenko would beat Haney easily, and then Shakur would defeat Loma in a mega-fight on PPV to become Top Rank’s next star.
Rather than Haney taking the fight that Top Rank wants against Lomachenko, he’ll swerve the sure-thing loss and move up to 140 as an undefeated former undisputed lightweight champion.
It’s a good business move on Haney’s part to avoid a near-certain loss to Lomachenko, but in doing so, it would open the eyes of fans about what kind of fighter he is. If Haney is going to avoid Lomachenko, then who else will he avoid when he moves up to 140?
Haney has used up two of his three fights contract with Top Rank with easy wins over George Kambosos Jr, a weak unified champion.
Top Rank now wants to match Haney tough against Lomachenko, but he could veto that idea and move up to 140 to take another easy fight.
Obviously, that would be a bad look on Haney’s part to swerve Lomachenko, but according to Malignaggi, that’s what he’ll do.
“I’m everything Paulie wishes he was… he been hating on me since the beginning! I’m not ducking or dodging nobody I been wanting to fight Loma since I was his MANDATORY! Now Paulina get my D**k out your mouth,” said Devin Haney on Twitter in response to Malignaggi saying he’s ducking Lomachenko.
Out of all the stuff that Haney said in his rant about Malignaggi, he didn’t say that he would fight Lomachenko next.
Haney could have defused what Malignaggi said by saying that he would fight Lomachenko, but he didn’t do that. What that means is Malignaggi was right about what he said that he would royally duck Lomachenko, vacate and move up to 14o.
I said from the start that Haney isn’t going to want to fight Lomachenko. He’s going to beat Kambosos because those are easy fights. Then he’s going to vacate those titles and move up to 140 pounds,” said Malignaggi on Pauly TV.
“I predicted that he would vacate his titles because it’s better off business-wise for him. No matter what, he’s going to duck Lomachenko.”
“We have shots fired from Devin Haney and the crew. I don’t feel I was hating on Devin Haney,” said Malignaggi to Pauly TV, reacting to Haney’s Twitter response after he predicted earlier today that Devin would vacate his titles rather than fight Lomachenko.
“I wanted him in more 50-50 fights, some fights where there was a threat to him if we’re going to call him a champion. I didn’t have a problem with him not fighting 50-50 fights before.
“Haney was calling himself a champion, but he was fighting guys that you wouldn’t be fighting in world title fights. I guess we got to go back to the beginning. Haney said he would never lose to a white boy, and this all started back then.
“I probably got to roast Devin Haney because I got to give it to you straight that I’ve kind of have always avoided because I like Devin Haney in a lot of ways.
“I didn’t like he was downplaying better fighters than he was before he got there, like Lomachenko and Teofimo Lopez, who was fighting phenomenal opposition at a very young age and winning legitimate world titles.
“He [Haney] was downplaying all these guys, and he was consistently fighting guys we’ve never heard of. At a certain point, it’s not an accident when you keep calling all the names out that we’ve never heard of your opponents, which is kind of the situation we were dealing with, Devin Haney, at the time.
“He was talking about Lomachenko and Teofimo Lopez at the time when they had belts, but then he ended up signing for fights against guys that nobody knew who they were.
“I look at Devin Haney, and he’s more Paulie Malignaggi than he is Floyd Mayweather. He looks nothing like Floyd Mayweather fought in his prime. Floyd Mayweather fought out of 500 different looks with a mutated style that was unfathomable for most fighters.
“Haney fights in a certain particular way. He’s jab first, set up counter-punching, feinting, and using his legs. Keep the fight as simple as possible unless you have to complicate it.
“Linares, that was your most notable opponent, Jorge Linares,” said Malignaggi.
