Ryan Garcia failed to make weight for his 2024 fight and was knocked down multiple times while testing positive for ostarine, a performance-enhancing drug. Although the result changed from a blowout loss to a no-contest, Haney’s aura as a possibly elite, multi-weight, world champion-caliber fighter was gone. He was considered washed and bearded. It was seen as a damaged product.
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Earlier this year, I was at the Mayan Theater in downtown Los Angeles and fans booed Haney when he took the stage opposite Garcia before his Times Square card on May 3. People in Southern California preferred to applaud Garcia, even though he was a sports cheater and despite his disgusting comments about George Floyd and the KKK, rather than Haney, the victim of the hoax from the beginning.
It was a glimpse into the moral inversion of boxing. The villain became the hero, while the champion was cast aside.
Haney was used to the taunts, however, considering the fan reaction during the ring walk for his 2023 fight against Vasiliy Lomachenko. Headlining in Las Vegas, Haney walked to the ring like an outsider: a rare American champion booed in his own country.
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The 27-year-old, who twice beat George Kambosos in Australia, and who defeated Lomachenko, Regis Prograis and José Ramírez to build one of the greatest resumes in the sport today, could not escape the disrespect. And even though he booked a fight for November 22 to face then-WBO welterweight champion Brian Norman Jr., a fighter considered a boogeyman for all he had done to those he had fought, Haney’s reputation remained at an all-time low heading into this weekend. He wasn’t even a question mark, but rather an underdog who was expected to fall to Norman’s power in Saudi Arabia.
Victories in times like these can rarely be sweeter, because on Saturday, at the ANB Arena in Riyadh, Haney had his own “You must have forgotten” moment.
He reminded an overly critical industry, media and fan base that he is still the special fighter he once considered himself to be, while continuing to highlight his Hall of Fame credentials in real time.
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Against Norman, Haney’s boxing dominance during the first six-round stretch was as good as anything we’ve seen in the modern era, including Oleksandr Usyk, Naoya Inoue and Terence Crawford.
He showed off one of the best shots in the entire sport, landing that piston shot into Norman’s mouth over and over again.
It wasn’t just his fluidity and skill in the ring that fooled Norman, as his control hook in Round 2 bent the now-former champion’s right leg, and a subsequent one-two, particularly the short-range right hand that caught him on the chin, sent the champion to the floor. Haney lingered over him, and the mockery wasn’t just directed at Norman. It was a metaphorical middle finger to all the critics who had mocked him as broken, exposed and ready to be beaten.
It was an incredible redemption arc for an American fighter who had reached heights that many talents will never reach, and lows that even Garcia, for all his controversies, has yet to experience.
The best may yet come for Haney, who has made a career of running into the smoke. He is on the cusp of big fights against Garcia in a rematch, or Teofimo Lopez, the WBO super lightweight champion with whom he also has a checkered history.
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Even a fight with Conor Benn could be box office, despite the Brit’s comments on Saturday’s DAZN livestream calling Haney a “scared fighter” who “didn’t throw a jab in case he was hit back.”
That’s certainly an interpretation of Haney’s skill set, if you don’t recognize what you’re actually seeing. And considering the way Benn fights, which relies more on heart and volume than timing and technique, that may not be the case.
Haney’s father and coach, Bill Haney, fired Benn and said he should be better known as “Conor When,” i.e. “When is he going to do something in boxing that’s on Devin Haney’s level?”
The Haneys are right. Benn and his promoter Eddie Hearn are wrong.
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The gap is absurd as Benn hasn’t even won a regional title, let alone what the American has accomplished internationally from lightweight to welterweight.
Haney presented himself in Riyadh as a fighter who had every excuse to succumb to the spotlight of scrutiny. There was persistent humiliation, concussion memes, and armchair coroners calling him finished.
Instead, he fought his way back up the sport’s hierarchy as arguably America’s third-best boxer, behind only “Bud” Crawford and Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, considering all the top-tier fighters he’s already beaten, and now winning world championships in three different weight classes.
Once considered among a new group of boxing’s Four Princes, alongside Lopez, Garcia and Gervonta Davis, Haney sent the world a reminder that only one of them has the skills, record. and championships to become the King.