Bill Haney is still hopping mad about the reports circulating about his son Devin’s miserably low PPV numbers for his fight against Regis Prograis earlier this month on December 9th on DAZN.
(Photo credit: Ed Mulholland/Matchroom or Melina Pizano/Matchroom)
The event reportedly brought in a mere 55K buys, which are beyond horrible, showing that Devin Haney is not a big draw. Those numbers suggest that Haney can’t draw.
If Bill & Devin wanted to look good in the eyes of their fans, they would come out and confess that the event did poorly on PPV if they knew the numbers.
By admitting the event did terrible numbers and saying they want to improve, people would see that as admirable. Look at it this way. No one believes Haney-Prograis did good numbers, and makes Devin & Bill look like they’re trying to whitewash what happened.
Bob Arum and Dan Rafael have both commented on Haney’s fight with Prograis, bringing in disappointing PPV totals, and DAZN hasn’t stepped up to refute this.
Demanding Proof
Bill wants to know the sources that revealed the low PPV numbers for Haney vs. Prograis. He should be asking DAZN to reveal them because they obviously know what they are by now, and Bill should be able to get access to them.
DAZN could help Bill by revealing the numbers, but they would spoil things further if the reports were accurate about the abysmal numbers. I don’t know why DAZN would want to reveal the numbers if they’re as bad as reported.
Look at it this way: If the numbers were out of this world good, don’t you think DAZN would have reported them long ago and been crowing about them like proud roosters?
By not saying anything, it allows Bill & Devin to deny the reports, and their sympathetic fans will believe them. But if DAZN were to report the numbers for the Haney-Prograis event, the jig would be up. Bill and Devin look silly, denying what DAZN reports.
That would impact Haney’s ability to negotiate fights with big names because they’d realize he’s not popular, and it wouldn’t be worth much to fight him because fans don’t want to pay to see him on PPV.
In other words, he’s just another belt holder and a guy fighting well below his natural size to game the system to get an advantage over smaller opponents. Devin rehydrated to 165 lbs for his fight against WBC 140-lb champion Regis Prograis.
The low numbers for Devin’s fight are worrisome because it suggest that fans don’t like his fighting style and don’t want to watch him running around the ring after throwing punches.
From a fan standpoint, they’re being asked to pay $70 for PPV. The last thing they want to watch is a fighter like Haney, looking like a fencer with a sword, landing and then stepping back several feet as if to say, ‘On guard.’ That’s boring. No one wants to see that junk when they’re paying $75 on PPV.
Bill repeatedly mentioned that the event brought in a big crowd at the Chase Center in San Francisco, but he didn’t mention the rumors of the tickets being given away as complimentary to fans because they didn’t sell out.
Shifting focus
“You could see the reaction on YouTube, Instagram, and all the social media channels about what they thought about the fight,” said Bill Haney to 78Sportstv about the Devin Haney vs. Regis Prograis fight on DAZN PPV.
Fans on social media, the ones that like the Floyd Mayweather Jr. & Shakur Stevenson style of fighting, loved Haney’s performance against Prograis.
They couldn’t shut up about how great they thought he looked in blanking the 35-year-old Prograis, winning a wide twelve round unanimous decision. However, the fans who like to be entertained and watch exciting fights with lots of action were bored by Haney’s Shakur-esque performance, and they felt ripped off, having paid $75 to watch him run around the ring and see a terrible undercard, with Montana Love losing to Liam Paro in the chief support bout.
“So, how do we have so much engagement and so many people show up? The pay-per-view numbers ain’t right because they know y’all can’t go nowhere and find them, and that’s why they can say something like that,” said Bill Haney, talking about the media that have reported the low PPV numbers of 50K for the Haney vs. Prograis event on DAZN on December 9th.
Apparently, Bob Arum of Top Rank has a source who has revealed to him what the numbers were for the Haney vs. Prograis fight. The same goes for Dan Rafael and Rick Glaser. They obviously know what the numbers are.
“Then they say, ‘Well, Bill. You show them [the PPV numbers].’ Did you ask Canelo to show his? Did you ask Tank to show his? Who came on here and showed that?” said Bill.
Of course, boxing fans have asked to know what Canelo Alvarez and Gervonta Davis’ past PPV numbers were? In their case, they would get that information, so it wasn’t left for them to speculate about.
“All the disgruntled boxers that have unfortunately lost their money and their fortune. Nobody showed up with a balled-up piece of paper with a ‘Wish this didn’t go this way’ or ‘I wish it had happened another way.’
“Everybody is scared to come and out and say, ‘Let me see the numbers.’ Everybody is scared to come out and challenge Dan Rafael. ‘Dan, you got some great. Where did you get it from?'” said Bill on his wanting Rafael to reveal who his inside source is that revealed the Haney vs. Prograis brought in only 50K PPV buys on DAZN.
Bill labels report as “gossip”
“Once you say you heard it from a source, it becomes gossip because it’s not something that you’ve seen,” said Bill.
If it was just one industry insider that is reporting the low PPV numbers for Haney-Prograis, then you could say, ‘Maybe Bill is right about it just being gossip,’ but there are too many respectable people reporting the same thing. Again, Bill & Devin would look better if they just came out and admitted that the event was an utter failure, and the numbers were low.
Moreover, if there were thousands of complimentary tickets given away to fans to help fill the Chase Center on the day or two before the fight, Bill should admit this too.
“We got on the scale. Everyone seen Devin weighed in with the other guy [Prograis],” said Bill, talking about Haney’s humongous weight. “He said, ‘Haney, I’m going to punish him. He’s soft, he’s weak. He ain’t did this, and he ain’t did that.’ Then people talk about that he [Haney] came in heavy [165 lbs for the fight with Regis]. Well, that’s all he did.”
It’s good that Bill is at least willing to admit that Haney rehydrated to super middleweight for the fight because it would have really made him look bad if he denied that, too. Anyone could see on the night that Devin looked like a super middleweight inside the ring, and he dominated on size alone against the much smaller Prograis.
“Well, what else did he do because you didn’t want to say what else he did? You remember all the stuff you said that was going to happen just like you were saying about that other little buddy in Baltimore,” said Bill.
