By Matt Lieberman: Eddie Hearn says he plans on matching the Devin Haney vs. Regis Prograis, winner of their December 9th fight against Ryan Garcia. Hearn believes the fight will be easy to make, considering that Ryan (23-1, 19 KOs) is with Golden Boy Promotions and fights on DAZN like those two.
When asked about Oscar De La Hoya wanting to match Ryan Garcia against WBO light welterweight champion Teofimo Lopez on February 10th on Super Bowl weekend, Hearn said that that would be a situation where it would involve a different network, ESPN, and he believes that Teo would make the negotiations difficult.
Some boxing fans will object to Ryan challenging the Haney-Prograis winner because he was recently beaten by Gervonta Davis, and his tune-up fight on December 2nd against lightweight fringe contender Oscar Duarte is a fighter that doesn’t compete at 140.
WBC light welterweight champion Prograis (29-1, 24 KOs) has a mandatory, Sandor Martin, who is supposed to be challenging for the title next. If Hearn is already planning on bypassing Sandor with Ryan Garcia’s fight, he’s going to have to give him a step-aside deal.
Ryan Garcia to fight Haney vs. Prograis winner
“How is Devin going to perform at 140? Two arguments might be he’ll be really good and strong because he’s been struggling at 135, and the other one might be that he might not be big or strong enough. Maybe his assets at 135 were his size,” said Eddie Hearn to Fighthype about Devin Haney moving up to light welterweight to challenge WBC 140-lb champion Regis Prograis on December 9th.
Haney = weight bully
There are a lot of question marks about Devin Haney’s ability to thrive at 140 because he’s a fighter that has benefited by having a huge size advantage over his opponents at 135.
For all intents and purposes, a welterweight that has been able to melt down to 135 due to his youth, Haney has used his size to beat his much smaller foes at lightweight. But now that Haney is fighting at 140, he doesn’t have the same collosol size advantage to dominate like before.
If you saw how much bigger the welterweight-sized Haney was than Prograis today, he still has the size advantage, but instead of being two divisions bigger than his opponents, it’s merely one.
“I just think it’s a great fight,” said Hearn. “I respect Devin because he could have had an easier route, but I think this was a master play by him and Bill if they pulled it off to move up and get a belt at 140 after everything they did at 135.
“I would you say so,” said Hearn when asked if Prograis is the hardest puncher at 140. “You got Regis, you got Teofimo, and I know Tank fluctuates between the weights, but yeah, I would say Regis is the hardest puncher
“Everyone likes to play back the Linares clip where he [Haney] got rocked at the end of the round. This happens in boxing, but can he stand up to the firepower of Regis Prograis if he’s getting hit flush? A lot of people think no, but I guess his plan is not to get hit flush.
“We’ll make the Ryan Garcia fight,” said Hearn when asked who he wants the Prograis vs. Haney winner to face next. “DAZN knows that the winner of this fight should fight Ryan Garcia. Ryan Garcia is with DAZN, he’s with Golden Boy.
It sends a wrong message to fighters and to fans if Ryan Garcia is allowed to fight for a world title at 140 after just one tune-up fight against Oscar Duarte because he should have to defeat a contender from the light welterweight division.
It’s not good enough that Ryan is facing a bottom fringe contender, #15 WBO Duarte, from the lightweight division. Ryan should fight a contender from the 140-lb weight class, preferably a top-five guy, before he’s given the chance to battle for a world title against the Prograis-Haney winner.
“That fight is so easy to make right now, and I think whoever wins this fight, if it’s Devin Haney, if it’s Regis Prograis, it’s a February, it’s a March fight in Vegas in Los Angeles against Ryan Garcia, and it’s a massive, massive fight for boxing,” said Hearn.
“Two different broadcasters, maybe, but I think that the winner of this fight is the man at 140 because Teofimo, as good as his wins are, you never know what he’s going to do.
“One of the problems with Teofimo Lopez, and this is a problem for Top Rank in ESPN when you talk about that Heisman date, you can’t rely on this guy to do a sensible deal for a fight. Can you imagine trying to negotiate with Teofimo Lopez to fight Ryan Garcia? Can you imagine the numbers that he would pull from the sky?
“With us, with Devin, we have the relationship where you be sensible but get your worth, and I just think that it’s a conversation that wouldn’t take long to
make that fight,” said Hearn.
Prograis could earn be pound-for-pound ranking
“People have been talking about Devin Haney – Ryan Garcia for a long time, and it’s a mega-fight, but if Regis goes in and knocks Devin Haney out, all of a sudden, he puts himself up there as a top pound-for-pound fighter himself,” Hearn said.
Any pound-for-pound ranking for Prograis after a victory over Haney could prove fleeting because he’ll need to face Sandor Martin and Gary Antuanne Russell, and the chances are high that he’ll lose to one of those two.
From the way Hearn is talking, he’s going to ensure that Prograis circumvents his WBC mandatory responsibility, fights Ryan, and then perhaps faces WBO champion Teofimo Lopez in a unification clash.
It’s not fair to the WBC mandatory, but we saw Hearn pull a similar move recently when he had WBA featherweight champion Leigh Wood maneuver around his mandatory Otabek Kholmatov to face Josh Warrington, who was coming off a loss, in what was eventually a business-level fight that had nothing to do with sport.
“He [Josh Taylor] did beat Regis Prograis in a fight that could have gone either way [in 2019], and he beat [Jose] Ramirez,” said Hearn. “How good actually is Ramirez? It still means Taylor’s a top fighter, but I think you can’t take anything away from Teofimo.
“When you look at Regis’s performance against [Danielito] Zorilla, you know Teofimo looked terrible in his performances before Josh Taylor and then performed really well in the big fight, and I think Regis is the same kind of guy.
“Shakur Stevenson is in a tough spot, right? I think he’s maybe pound-for-pound number one, right? I believe may go on to be it. He hasn’t beaten the guys yet to say that he is, and he’s not the biggest draw around.
“I don’t think that he’s necessarily been promoted in the greatest fashion, but for some reason, and this is a bit like [Terence] Crawford of the past, it just hasn’t stuck in terms of the fan base.
“If you’re fighting Shakur Stevenson, you’re fighting one of the best fighters in boxing for not a lot of money, right? And we all know that a manager’s job and a lawyer’s job is to make as much money as possible against the easiest opponent out there. That’s very frustrating as a promoter, but that’s the truth.
“So when your advisers are looking at it and saying, ‘We’re going to make four or five million to fight Shakur Stevenson for what? It’s a voluntary defense.’
“That’s a fight that should be making these guys double figures, but if you’re Shakur Stevenson, you also need to understand that you need a breakout fight like that, and sometimes you have to take a small end to make a fight happen.
“But Shakur is of the mindset where he’s going, and maybe his team is saying, ‘There’s no way we’re taking 25%,’ but what if you did take 25% and what if you beat Deon Haney and you were undisputed in 135, and then you become a mega-star? So, I see both sides.
“Yeah, he did,” said Haney about Haney taking the smaller money to fight George Kambosos Jr. “Devin went to Australia and took not a lot of money to try and become undisputed, and he did it in his backyard, and he did it, and then he had to rematch him in his backyard.
“He did it, then he came back and fought [Vasily] Lomachenko in a very close fight that could have gone either way, still fought Lomachenko and now moves up and fight Prograis.
“So I think no one can question Devin’s credentials, but sometimes in boxing, you have to give a little to get the right fight,” said Hearn.
