By Brian Webber: Devin Haney (29-0, 15 KOs) will seek out the biggest win of his career when he defends his undisputed lightweight championship against former three-division world champion Vasily Lomachenko at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on May 20th live on ESPN+ pay-per-view. The Haney-Lomachenko event kicks off at 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT, and the price tag will be $59.99 on PPV. Top Rank is the promoter for the event.
Some boxing fans won’t be overjoyed at needing to pay to watch Haney and Lomachenko (17-2, 11 KOs) on PPV, given that it comes a month after the April 22nd mega-fight between Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis and Ryan Garcia, which will set the watchers back $84.99.
However, the price for Haney vs. Lomachnko isn’t nearly as bad as what they’ll be asked to pay to see Tank and Kingry. Haney-Lomachenko is a bargain compared to the price of that event.
We’re going to see how good Haney is because Lomachenko will be in better shape than his last fight against Jamaine Ortiz last October. Loma was coming back from the war in Ukraine and a ten-month layoff when he took the fight against a sharp Ortiz.
It’s important for Haney to refrain from clinching a lot, as he did in his last two fights against Kambosos. Haney gained a reputation from those two fights for being a spoiler and having a non-fan-friendly fighting style.
If Haney wants to become a PPV attraction in a real sense, he’s going to need to be more entertaining because boxing fans don’t pay to see someone that mainly just jabs & holds the way Haney does.
Haney vs. Lomachenko, how to watch, start time?
Haney-Lomachenko will be shown on ESPN PPV on May 20th. The event costs $59.99, starting at 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT.
“Devin Haney is the sport’s brightest young superstar, and he’s taking on a tremendous challenge against one of this generation’s best pound-for-pound fighters in Vasiliy Lomachenko,” said Top Rank boss Bob Arum.
Devin, 24, will return to the United States following his back-to-back victories over former unified lightweight champion Georg Kambosos Jr in Australia last year. Haney can defend his four 135-lb belts in the U.S. for the first and possibly the last time, as he could choose to vacate the belts to move up to 140 if he’s victorious against the 35-year-old Lomachenko.
This fight is much more formidable for Haney than his recent contests against Kambosos Jr, Joseph ‘JoJo’ Diaz, and Jorge Linares.
“Lomachenko is a good fighter and future Hall of Fame candidate,” Haney said. “This is the fight the fans really want, and I made it happen. I’ve gotten two times better since the Kambosos rematch, and believe it, or not, the better my opponent is, the better I perform.
“I will show the world on May 20 that I’m the best fighter on the planet.”
Haney-Lomachenko isn’t the fight that fans want to see from Devin. The reality is this is a fight that boxing fans wanted to see several years ago, but the interest has dropped off due to Lomachenko not being as active as he should have been and his poor performance against Jamaine Ortiz and Teofimo Lopez.
Nowadays, boxing fans have been demanding Hane fight these killers:
- Ryan Garcia
- Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis
- Shakur Stevenson
- Frank Martin
- Regis Prograis
- Teofimo Lopez
- Subriel Matias
- Richardson Hitchins
The two-time Olympic gold medalist Lomachenko is still a good fighter, but he’s slipped a notch in the last three years since his loss to Teofimo in October 2020.
“My goal is to become the undisputed lightweight champion, and Devin Haney is the man with the belts. I respect his boxing IQ and am excited about this challenge,” said Lomachenko.
Where is Haney vs. Lomachenko?
Haney vs. Lomachenko will occur at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, on May 20th.
“This is a fight that I’ve always wanted since I was 19, 20 years old; I’ve been calling out Loma when he did look unbeatable,” said Haney to Fighthype. “They were saying he was ‘The Matrix,’ and he was #1 pound-for-pound, this and that, and I was calling him out.
“He went the Franchise route, and people said it was just a bluff, and I really didn’t want to fight him,” Haney said about Lomachenko. “But it just shows you how much I really wanted to fight him because, at this point in my career, I don’t have to fight him, but I choose to fight him.
“What that shows is what I say is real. I don’t just call out guys. What they say is that I call them out, and then I don’t fight them. No, any guys that I called out, if they really wanted to fight, the fight has been made. This is another time when I’ve proved that.
“I’ve got the undisputed title now, so I want to knock them down one by one. Of course, everybody knows it’s hard for me to make the [135-lb] weight. It’s not easy for me to make the weight, but I’m sacrificing to fight somebody that I’ve wanted to fight for a long time. Somebody, they said, was the closest thing to Muhammad Ali.
“They said he was ‘The Matrix,’ he was this, and he was that. He was mentioned with the greats and all that. I’m choosing to stay in the weight class and fight him, and we don’t know what’s next. We got to see.
“I may go up in weight, but I may not. I have to see how I feel in this fight. I got to see how my weight cut goes and how everything goes. It’s definitely up in the air. I haven’t made my decision yet.
“Like I said, I got to see after the fight, and we’ll see. I wouldn’t say it was up to Loma in deciding when the fight was. It was mostly the network [ESPN], and my promoter and all that. I don’t think Loma really had a say for when the fight was.
“I think he was willing to fight in March, but I don’t know, I really don’t know, but I really wanted the fight,” said Haney.
