Devin Haney losing out on the Ryan Garcia fight puts him in a bad position, needing to defend his newly won WBC light welterweight title against mandatory Sandor Martin or face the walking guillotine, IBF champion Subriel Matias and deal with the outcome.
(Photo credit: Ed Mulholland/Matchroom or Melina Pizano/Matchroom)
Forced Choices, Dicey Outcomes
The WBC would likely agree to allow Haney (31-0, 15 KOs) to fight a unification match against the dangerous puncher Matias (20-1, 20 KOs) because that would be a big fight, but the problem is that Devin won’t take that match. There’s too much risk of taking a loss, a bad one.
Haney’s marketability is absolute zero. So getting knocked out by Subrias Matias, who many feel is the true #1 fighter in the 140-lb division, would reduce Devin to one of the many bottom feeders in the weight class. He could forget about his dream of facing Ryan Garcia for an easy payday or his hopeless vision of fighting Gervonta Davis, who would outsize by a good 20 lbs.
Marketability on the Line
Fighting Sandor Martin (42-3, 15 KOs) will likely negatively impact Haney’s ability to make fights with the stars because he and his dad, Bill, will obviously insist on the match being shown on DAZN PPV.
The boxing public isn’t going to want to waste their hard-earned money ordering Haney vs. Sandor Martin, so that fight might even bring in less than 30K PPV buys. When that happens, Haney will be viewed as unworthy to fight by the popular fighters unless he’s willing to agree to be on the B-side and weight stipulations that would prevent him from rehydrating to 165+.
The Waiting Game: Risky Business
If Haney doesn’t wish to risk his hide fighting Subriel Matias or Martin, he can always sit & wait for the dust to settle on the Ryan Garcia vs. Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero fight and then look to face Kingry after.
Sitting and waiting would be risky for Haney because he’d be inactive, and there would be no way of knowing if Ryan would fight him. Devin could wait for nothing.
Moreover, by not fighting, Haney would be going into negotiations with Ryan, with his last fight being against Regis Prograis, and the low 50K PPV numbers for that event would sink his chances of being the A-side, which is what he and Bill obviously want.