By Matt Lieberman: Egis Klimas, the manager for former three-division world champion Vasily Lomachenko, has shot off letters to the alphabet sanctioning bodies, appealing his loss to undisputed lightweight champ Devin Haney last Saturday night and requesting that his fighter be made mandatory for all four belts to force a rematch.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist Lomachenko (17-3, 11 KOs) lost what many boxing fans saw as a controversial twelve round unanimous decision last Saturday night to Haney (30-0, 15 KOs) at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Haney knows it’s too risky to give Lomachenko a rematch, not when he can potentially double or even triple his net with a payday of $15 million+ for a fight against Gervonta Davis.
The 24-year-old Haney dodged a bullet last weekend with his contested ‘W’ against Lomachenko, and he’s not going to go down that avenue again if he has the chance for a cash-out like we recently saw with Ryan Garcia.
It won’t matter if Haney’s career immediately goes belly up after a loss to Tank Davis, which is likely to be the case; he’ll be set up for life with the mega-millions from that fight and can live well in a mansion in Beverly Hills and be neighbor with the fabulously wealthy Top Rank promoter Bob Arum.
Klimas & Lomachenko were both pretty bitter about the loss afterward, talking about it at the post-fight press conference and understandably upset. Lomachenko still insisted that he’s “won” the fight, but the judges felt otherwise, giving the win to Haney by the scores 116-112, 115-113, and 115-113.
Haney didn’t say anything about giving Lomachenko a rematch in the fight’s aftermath. The only fighter that Haney, 24, seems interested in fighting next is Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis, and he might get his wish now that he’s a free agent.
It’s unlikely that the four sanctioning bodies will want to get in the way of a Tank vs. Haney fight by ordering Devin to give Lomachenko an immediate rematch.
There’s too much money involved in a Tank-Haney fight for the sanctioning bodies to want to mess that up. Even if the four sanctioning bodies did order Haney to fight Lomachenko next, he’d likely vacate the belts if he can get a massive money fight against Gervonta next.
Top Rank boss Bob Arum and the popular lightweight Shakur Stevenson both had Lomachenko winning, among many others, but that doesn’t change what shows up in the record books. Haney has the victory, and there’s nothing Lomachenko can do about it. What’s done is done.
Letter send to @IBFUSBAboxing pic.twitter.com/b4IMZmXUi1
— Egis Klimas (@KlimasBoxing) May 24, 2023
