Devin Haney is looking to bounce back from the an extremely testing period in the sport.
The 25-year-old vacated his undisputed lightweight world titles last year to move up to the 140 pounds division, winning a world title in his maiden bout against Regis Prograis.
He then agreed a deal to defend his new WBC belt against Ryan Garcia, but the latter missed weight so wasn’t eligible to win it. Despite that, as well as some worrying fight week antics from Garcia, the fight went ahead.
Haney was stunned by three knockdowns and a loss on the scorecards, though it was later revealed that Garcia had failed two doping tests and the result was overturned to a no contest.
As Garcia sits on the sidelines banned for one year, Haney is considering his ring return. In an interview with All the Smoke Fight, he revealed that a unification fight was offered to Teofimo Lopez but quickly turned down.
“It’s funny that you ask that, because I was supposed to do a stay-busy fight, get back in the ring, in October in Saudi. The next fight was gonna be Teo. Turki [Alalshikh] and the guys offered him a fight – he said no, he’s not ready.”
Haney’s statement goes against Lopez’ vocal willingness to face all the top dogs. He has most recently called out both Terence Crawford and Gervonta Davis, willing to move up to super-welterweight for the Crawford bout or welcome ‘Tank’ back to the super-lightweight ranks.
The Haney fight, given two belts would be on the line, makes the most sense out of all of them.
