By: Hans Themistode
Devin Haney officially made the breakthrough he was looking for. The WBC lightweight belt holder took on his biggest test to date when he matched up against former multiple division titlist, Jorge Linares. The two faced off this past weekend at the Michelob Ultra Arena, in Las Vegas, Nevada in front of roughly 5,000 fans.
For the overwhelming majority of their contest, Haney did what he wanted, when he wanted to. Although Haney was ultimately rocked in the tenth and spent the final few rounds holding instead of engaging, he picked up the biggest win of his career. While most have focused on a few of his shaky moments, Bill Haney, father and trainer of Devin, would rather the public place more of their attention on what his son was able to accomplish. With Linares facing some of the best fighters in the world over the course of his career, Devin arguably performed better than them all.
“We wanted to show another style of Devin,” said Bill during an interview with Fight Hub TV. “He did it from the inside, he did it from outside. When you can outbox a Jorge Linares, I don’t think anyone has ever went up that much on points on Linares. Not even (Vasiliy) Lomachenko, he didn’t pitch a shutout like that. We showed some things that we know that some other boxers have taken notice to, whether they want to admit it or not.”
Now that Devin Haney has officially passed the test presented to him by Jorge Linares, Bill Haney wants his son to take things to the next level.
For the better part of the last year, both Devin Haney and Teofimo Lopez have hurled curse words at one another. While team Haney refrained from placing their energy in the back and forth rhetoric recently, now that their match with Linares is officially behind them, Bill Haney reignited their war of words. Not only does the long-time trainer want Lopez next but he also predicted how things would play out.
“He’ll box Teofimo’s ass up. You see that we can take a shot, you see that we can work on the inside. Teofimo is the one that’s going to have to go to the lab. When have you seen Teofimo have an inside game? You haven’t. Come on Teo we done handled our business. Now what y’all gonna do? We handled our business. What’s next? Let’s make this sh*t happen.”