By: Hans Themistode
The prevailing thought process in boxing circles is that Devin Haney, Teofimo Lopez, Ryan Garcia, Gervonta “Tank” Davis, and Shakur Stevenson are future stars in the sport of boxing. Those sentiments are something that Bill Haney, Devin Haney’s father, agrees with.
Unsurprisingly, Bill believes that his son is the cream of the crop. But, of all those aforementioned fighters, he views one as being by far the biggest threat to his offspring and his future goals.
“Tank has always been the most dangerous fighter of those future or possible opponents,” said Bill Haney during an interview with FightHype.com. “Make no mistake about it.”
Recently, Davis only re-enforced the comments of Bill Haney. After dominating the competition at 130 and 135 pounds, the hard-hitting Baltimore native tried his hand at 140 pounds. In his first contest in his new weight division, Davis took on WBA “Regular” belt holder, Mario Barrios.
Despite forfeiting the advantage in the height, reach and weight departments, Davis went on to defeat his much bigger opponent. Any questions of Davis and whether or not his unrelenting power would carry, was immediately answered as he dropped Barrios a total of three times before ultimately picking up the 11th round stoppage win.
The victory may have garnered Davis even more respect in the boxing world, but Bill Haney found his contest against Barrios as essentially inconsequential in how he views the 26-year-old knockout artist.
“I didn’t need to see him against Mario Barrios for me to know that he’s always been the most dangerous.”
If a matchup between Haney and Davis ever materializes, it would be a showdown between two completely different fighters. While Davis has shown off his boxing skills throughout his career, he’s mostly known for leaving his opponents comatose in the ring. On the other side of the equation, Devin Haney has developed into one of the sports pure boxers.
On May 29th, at the Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, earlier this year, Devin Haney carefully dissected former multiple division titlist, Jorge Linares, to defend his WBC lightweight crown.
Considering Devin’s ability to box and move, Bill believes that his son could present the sort of problems to Davis that he’s yet to see in the ring. But while Bill is unquestionably backing his son in their possible future showdown, he does acknowledge that Davis packs the sort of punch that will leave Devin on his toes and alert at all times.
“I just know that stylistically, Devin presents some problems for Tank, just like Tank presents a great deal of dangerous power to Devin as well.”