WBC junior welterweight champion Devin ‘The Dream’ Haney 31-0 (15) deserves to be ranked the number one pound-for-pound boxer in the world, according to his father and trainer Bill Haney.
The former undisputed lightweight champion moved up a division to dethrone reigning WBC champion Regis Prograis by 29-2 (24) by shutout at the Chase Center in San Francisco, California on Saturday night. Prograis was down in round three. It was a near-perfect performance from Haney.
“No other fighter has done what Devin has done,” Bill Haney said after the fight. “Crossing the pond to become undisputed [against George Kambosos Jr in Australia last year]. Coming up to another division and fighting the hard-hitting boogeyman no one wanted to fight.
“He’s the number one fighter right now, pound-for-pound. And it’s no slight towards Terence Crawford’s performance. But if Errol Spence was depleted and he has go up to ’54, how much fucking credit can we give him for that fight?”
Three-weight world champion Crawford 40-0 (31) became the undisputed champ at welterweight when he scored a ninth-round knockout of Errol Spence 28-1 (22) at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on July 29. In a one-sided performance, the 36-year-old Crawford had Spence on the canvas three times during the bout.
The Ring magazine ranks Crawford number one pound-for-pound while Haney is currently sitting at number seven, although the ratings have not been updated since the 25-year-old’s win over Prograis.
Haney was a little more coy than his father when asked where he should be mentioned on the mythical list.
“I don’t know,” Haney said. “I put it in Allah’s hands. I’m not rushing nothing. I’m still young, 25 years old. It’s only a matter of time… I’ll be number one on that pound-for-pound list. I’m climbing the ladder.”
Haney’s promoter Eddie Hearn was pleasantly surprised with the numbers Haney drew to his fight in his native San Francisco.
“When we came to America, we felt there was so much potential in big sport cities that haven’t been hosting boxing for some time,” the Matchroom Boxing boss said on The MMA Hour.
“But there’s no analytics, no data that can give you confidence to go there, versus a gate in Las Vegas or in New York. Here you’ve got the Bay Area, where Devin is from. We’ve got a fantastic arena in the Chase Center, the home of the Warriors, they’ve got huge dates, a huge commercial presence in the city.
“It should work, but do you really want to make these guarantees towards the fighters on the basis that you’re going to hit, I don’t know, an eight or 9,000 gate. We haven’t seen that before, so to do 16,000 was incredible. It was great for US boxing, I think, that a new star coming in can fill up arenas in not a random city but one that isn’t a consistent host for boxing.
“For Devin’s career as well, it was a fantastic look, because now you’re looking at the other mega fights. Now he’s got the ammunition to say, look, ‘I just sold out San Francisco, we can do it in Vegas, we can do it in New York.’ You know now this kid can sell up the gate.”
