Devin Haney v Yuriorkis Gamboa

On Saturday, Devin Haney will be the last boxer to make the walk to the ring at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Seminole, Florida, as he prepares to fight 2004 Olympic gold medalist Yuriorkis Gamboa in a lightweight bout that serves as the main event of a card streamed on DAZN.

Haney will be introduced as the WBC champion, and he’ll have the familiar green belt wrapped around his waist should he win.

Haney, 21, is one of the elite talents in boxing and an almost guaranteed future star.

But WBC champion? Well, that’s a bit confusing.

On Oct. 12, five days ahead of the lightweight title unification bout in Las Vegas between Vasiliy Lomachenko and Teofimo Lopez, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman held a Zoom call with U.S.-based boxing reporters.

Lopez entered that bout as the IBF champion. He’d knocked out Richard Commey in New York in December to win the championship. Lomachenko entered the bout with the WBA-WBO belts and the WBC franchise belt. In 2018, he stopped Jorge Linares to win the WBC lightweight championship, but then was granted the organization’s franchise designation.

Only two boxers, Canelo Alvarez and Lomachenko, had that designation at the time. According to WBC rules, it was non-transferrable. The franchise title was created, Sulaiman said, for special fighters who compete in multiple weight classes and having the designation will relieve them of mandatory challenge obligations.

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During that same Zoom call, Sulaiman said that Lopez had requested, and been granted, the recognition as franchise champion should he win. Sulaiman, though, was unequivocal before the fight that Lomachenko, and not Haney, was the WBC lightweight champion.

“Lomachenko is the WBC lightweight champion,” Sulaiman said when asked directly. “He won [the title] and petitioned for the ‘franchise’ designation. The franchise is put above any champion in the lightweight category. So, Lomachenko is, in fact, champion with special attributes. He doesn’t have to face the mandatories that normally come when you win a vacant title. He was named franchise and he could go ahead and make this fight with Teofimo Lopez.”

So Haney has a belt and he’ll get the only benefit that champions receive, in that he’ll keep the championship in event of a draw. But is he really a champion?

Well, not really.

But trying to make sense of what any of boxing’s sanctioning bodies do with their belts will quickly drive one batty. It often seems the WBA names new champions inside the divisions each week, so there are always multiple people who call themselves WBA champions.

Lomachenko attempted to defend the WBA belt against Lopez on Oct. 17, but last weekend, Gervonta “Tank” Davis retained the WBA lightweight belt with a sensational knockout of Leo Santa Cruz in San Antonio, Texas.

Haney is an incredible talent who has faced the lowest level of opposition of all the elite young lightweights, including Lopez, Davis and Ryan Garcia. Gamboa, who was once elite but is now well past his prime and serving as a stepping stone sort of opponent, is easily the best opposition Haney has faced.

But Haney’s a remarkable talent with blinding speed. A prime Haney versus a prime Gamboa would have been an amazing bout, pitting two of the quickest fighters ever, but Gamboa’s speed is no longer what it was.

Still, Haney is eager to show what he can do with a guy of Gamboa’s stature. Gamboa, 38, was stopped by Davis at 1:17 of the 12th round in what turned out to be a more difficult than expected win for Davis.

“Gamboa has done a lot in the sport, and the fact that he gave a lot of fighters tough fights says a lot about him,” Haney said. “I want to prove a point in this bout that a lot of people are not mentioning my name among the best in the world, and I am looking to change that by putting forth a performance against Gamboa that no one has ever seen before. I respect Gamboa as a fighter, but in the ring, I will have no respect for him at all. In the ring he is my enemy.”

Haney, who was 5 when Gamboa won his gold medal for Cuba, needs to get into the mix with Lopez, Davis and Garcia. Garcia is fighting Luke Campbell in a WBC eliminator on Dec. 5 that will stream on DAZN.

Garcia told Yahoo Sports that his preference would be to fight Davis next if he beats Campbell, but a Haney-Garica fight would be fascinating.

Any combination of them together would be great, and Haney seems of a mind to do it.

“Obviously, a win gives me my second world title defense, which is very important to me,” Haney said. “Title defenses show a lot about what kind of fighter you really are. I don’t care how you won it or who you won it from. Can you defend the world title against all challengers? That’s what I represent as a throwback champion. You can have a strategy to get there but when you become a champion you become a target.

“Tank Davis, Teofimo Lopez and Ryan Garcia are all great potential opponents for me. I’d rather fight sooner than later, but they have to feel the same way about me. I have a goal to be the first billionaire boxer, and to do that I have to put forth billion-dollar performances.”

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Well it's boxing, I'll try to watch this. Not a whole lot of room for Haney to prove much here, the better he looks the more it may be down to Gamboa being twice his age and coming off the injury/layoff and everything else. It's not really a good measuring stick at this point, I think everyone expects him to win more emphatically than Davis did last out, but I guess it'll be interesting to see whether he shows much killer instinct in spots.

Really surprised Haney hasn't been talked up much at all coming into this one. Undercard looks like huge heavyweight showcases. Good look at Zhang but don't expect too much out of Devin Vargas at this point but stranger things have happened. Hope Gamboa has two good feet to stand on.

Reshat Mati in with a Marcos Mojica who looks massive and sloooow.

We're on a run of quality uppercuts ending a fight. Mojica takes one up the middle and does the turn away kneel down and that's a wrap.

Huge mismatch for Biyarslanov ends within a minute. Think he was a late replacement. Strikes me that DAZN would greatly improve if maybe they try matching some of these heavy favorites on the same card with one another on occasion.

Watching the wrestling ppv because I'm a childish adult and I can... Can you gits post when hrgovic is about to start so I can see the caveman beat up a old Toney victim

Haven't seen Vargas since Ruiz beat the stuffing out of him. First time seeing 6'6 Zhang. Definitely the battle of the Dad bods here :-X

Big Bang Zhang moves much better than I expected for some reason. Pretty fluid in early going. Vargas just looking to touch and get out, real conscious of head shots. Goes down but ruled slip at very end of round

Oh this isn't going to end well. Vargas better with the short rights in 2nd. Slips in nice little combos but has the feel of matter of time. Annnnd stream timing out :p

Into the 4th. Really surprised Zhang sits down between rounds ;D. The guy is just long everywhere. Oh Vargas down flat on his back! That was seriously a solid sweeping one-two by Zhang. Brutal right hand had about 5 miles on it

Stream is dropping on and off like Michael Moorer. Just laying there thinking about it and blinking.

Booker may not have enough ring to bicycle it here. Poor guy has saddlebags. Crazy to think he was out for what a decade ffs? Filip looks all business

Filip moves a bit like he's on a see saw, both feet same time. Booker gets off some slap taps but Filip giving him no room at all.

Booker trying to punch between these long shots. Now he's whooooing like Ric Flair at Filip after he gets hit :-X. Filip left straight down at the waist but really whips it good. Solid volley and Booker down end of round, nose mucked up too

"Rydell Booker has never been down" heard it at least 5 times from them ;D. Can't say that anymore. He's starting to beat Booker up in 3rd. Not keen on Filip walking in hands low much of the time. Corner may take a look at Booker real soon he's sponging long hard 123's

Corner sounds like they're trying to talk him out of it but he goes in. Booker dejected and folded it up, Filip gets the tko as ref waves it off in 5th but no punches land ironically. Filip tells him "You're too old" ;D

I thought that was hrgovics best performance, he looked a bit lighter, I didn't check the weights though. Booker is booker but he isn't a total plum and hrgovic has fought some plums.. I think hrgo looked good, his left hand isn't a wladimir left hand and he isn't as powerful as Joshua but he's improved and could well end up with a belt, not sure about all of them though...

Leave it up to Mora to relate anything Gamboa to Roberto Duran. Good in and out stabbing by Haney. Gamboa solid but can't help but think he'll be clipped and short circuited at some point. Haneys movement is real nice

Evening chaps. What channel is this on please?

Yeah, I'm just watching the decision. Perfect timing Kirkland.

Everything went blurry for a bit. Caught the late rounds and he looked pretty workmanlike. If a cat has 9 lives than Gamboa has 10 and he'll land the bigger fight than Haney will here. The question is how much of Haney is trying too hard to be Mayweather, Jones Jr and-or Hank Lundy all at once :-X.

Talk of Haney being the next number 1 is crazy, he doesn't have Lomas skill or the power to trouble Tank or Lopez.
I didn't rate him before this fight , I think I'm right.

Haney won every round, but didn’t necessarily do anything amazing. Unfortunately for him, that means that fans won’t be demanding Lopez or these other young guns to fight him. Haney really needs to step it up big next fight and fight a top lightweight

Haney well outboxed Gamboa but he could not put a dent in Gamboas chin.
What I would say he adds interest to the lightweight mix which is not a bad thing.🙂

Was honestly watching on and off and drifted away from the main event. Haney put on one of those 'look good tonight and try to look great tomorrow' type performances. The crazy thing is he's a "two" time world champ and we're still talking about step up fights. Davis, Lopez and Garcia are all on track to pass him by from the looks of it. A fight with maybe a Linares or Fortuna would be exciting.

I missed the fight due to other engagements.

Was it as one sided as I expected it to be?

Sounds like Haney didn't do what he was supposed to do; make Gamboa look like a past his best fighter. Or did Yuri exceed & turn the clock back one more time?