Bill Haney claims to have contacted the manager for IBF light welterweight champion Subriel Matias, Peter Kahn, on Sunday to attempt to negotiate a unification fight with Devin Haney, but he says the price was “ridiculous.”
According to Bill, IBF 140-lb champion Matias (20-1, 20 KOs) wants $4 million to fight WBC champ Haney in a unification. Bill says the was way above the “couple of hundred thousand” that the Puerto Rican fighter Matias had made for his other fights.
In Bill’s mind, the $4M demand Matias demands is his way of sabotaging the negotiations to weasel out of the fight. It’s unclear why Bill thinks Matias would be trying to sabotage the negotiation because that’s a winnable fight for him and would turn him into a star.
We’re only hearing Bill’s side of the story. Matias and his manager likely have a different version of what transpired with Bill’s attempt to begin talks with Matias to face Haney.
We don’t know how serious Bill is about wanting to put a fight together with Matias because he’s still hoping that Gervonta Davis will fight Devin next.
Even if Gervonta doesn’t fight Devin, Bill probably won’t want to put him in a risky unification match with Matias and wind up in the same shoes as his last opponent Shohjahon Ergashev.
Bill says that Devin made only “$2.8 million” for his fight against George Kambosos Jr. in Australia.
“I think everyone was talking about Subriel Matias. How much boogey does he have in him?” said Bill Haney to Fight Hub TV, claiming he contacted the manager for IBF light welterweight champion Subriel Matias to discuss a possible unification fight with WBC 140-lb champion Devin Haney next.
“I gave [Matias’ manager] Peter Kahn a call about it. He didn’t sound too much boogeyman to me at $4 million. I called him and said, ‘Devin said, let’s talk.’ I think he might have been surprised for me to call this morning.”
Boxing fans on social media doubt that Bill Haney called Matias’ manager about a fight and just made this whole story up out of thin air for clout-chasing purposes to give Devin’s fans the impression that he attempted to put a bout together with the boogeyman of the 140-lb division, but sabotaged the negotiations.
They think Bill made up this cockamamie story to make Matias look like he’s afraid of Haney to give his son a little extra popularity after his win against an old, over-the-hill Regis Prograis last Saturday night. They see it as Bill trying to create a star out of Haney without him having to fight the dangerous Matias.
“So, when he said the kid [Matias] wanted $4 million, I waited 30 minutes and called him back, and he said, ‘No, really. The kid wants $4 million.’ I told him the kid only made a couple hundred thousand,” said Bill. “We didn’t make $4 million to go to Australia [to fight former IBF, WBA & WBO lightweight champion George Kambosos Jr. in 2022]. We made $2.8 [million.] Peter Kahn knows that.
“We didn’t make $4 million to go back [to Australia for the rematch with Kambosos Jr.] as the undisputed. I think that was a way to not make the deal happen [with Matias]. I told him. I went back, and he said four [million] again.”
What Bill is saying about Matias wanting $4 million just sounds too unbelievable to be true. It sounds like a fish story and totally implausible. Matias is too different of a fighter than the guys Haney has been fighting for Bill’s yarn to be true.
Haney mostly fights old guys, and the only exception to that rule in recent years was when he fought Kambosos, and he’s a B-level fighter that got lucky, catching Teofimo Lopez when he was falling apart.
“I think they’ve been talking a lot of s***. I’ve only seen him [Matias] fight one time, and I gave them the respect they deserve and based on him being a champion at 140,” said Bill. “So, I never said anything about him. So, I know people were talking, and I know that might be something.”
It’s going to be interesting to see who Haney fights next since Bill is talking about Matias pricing himself out. All the guys that Bill wants for Haney, Gervonta Davis, Ryan Garcia, and Teofimo Lopez, are not likely to fight him next, and maybe never.
Devin could always fight Shakur Stevenson because that’s a guy who would probably jump at the chance of fighting him next.
“So, I reached out to my good buddy, Peter Kahn. He was the manager of George Kambosos, so we were able to negotiate that, but Peter didn’t put $4 million on the table for Devin. It was far less than that.
“I just thought that was ridiculous, and it was one way to tell me to stop calling him,” said Bill.
