Bob Arum to offer Devin Haney three options for next fight

By Boxing News - 06/07/2023 - Comments

By Dan Ambrose: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum has three options to offer Devin Haney for his next fight. Haney (30-0, 15 KOs) is now a free agent after his contract with Top Rank ended with his victory over Vasily Lomacheenko.

Unfortunately for Arum, his three options for Haney will not offer the kind of dough he could get if he faces Gervonta Davis next, but that’s not a guaranteed fight for him.

Arum listed these three options for Haney to 3 Knockdown Rule for his next contest:

  • Shakur Stevenson
  • Vasyl Lomachenko
  • Josh Taylor
  • Teofimo Lopez

Of those choices, you can immediately rule out the talented Shakur Stevenson because he’s the equivalent of the electric third rail of a subway, and Haney wants no part of fighting him.

Lomachenko is also too risky for Haney, as he clearly got the better of him last month and was robbed in their Las Vegas fight. So, you can rule him out too.

The only option of the three that Arum is presenting to Haney that he and his father, Bill, might agree to is Teofimo Lopez, and that’s only because he’s shown signs of deterioration in his last three fights. That’s the only guy Haney would have a better-than-average chance of beating without help from controversial scoring.

Haney wants the Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis payday fight, but that’s tricky to try and put together because the guy is in jail. When Gervonta gets out, it will not be easy for Haney to negotiate a fight with him, and that’s if the Baltimore native & his management at PBC are interested in fighting him.

Assuming that Gervonta does want the fight, Haney will likely need to agree to take the much smaller purse split, catchweight, and rehydration clause.  As big as Haney is, looking like a full-fledged welterweight inside the ring against Loma, it’s virtually a certainty that he’ll need to agree to a rehydration clause to get the Tank Davis fight.

If Haney is stubborn and refuses to budget on all Gervonta’s demands, he won’t get the fight and will need to decide if it’s better to take his chances against Lomachenko or Teofimo Lopez.

Haney will likely give in to Tank Davis and his management at PBC’s demands because the money he’ll make in that cash out will be considerably more than he would be fighting any of Arum’s three options.

The guys that Haney won’t fight at 140 are Regis Prograis and Subriel Matias because they hit too hard, and the money he makes won’t be worth the risk.

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