Devin Haney lost his undefeated record and was knocked down three times in a majority decision loss to Ryan Garcia, but retained his WBC super lightweight title after Garcia missed weight for their bout.
Devin Haney’s Saturday was a rough one. He lost more than just his undefeated record.
Sure, he was lucky to keep his WBC super lightweight title. That’s only because Ryan Garcia didn’t make weight for their fight. But Haney still took a hit.
Garcia didn’t just beat him; he pummeled him with power punches in key exchanges of their 12-round bout. Haney was officially knocked down three times. His pro record slipped to 31-1.
Haney’s been a regular in the top 10 of pound-for-pound rankings. That’s on most major boxing sites, including The Ring and ESPN. But his reputation? It’s gonna take a hit after this disappointing performance. He was the heavy favorite, after all.
Paulie Malignaggi, analyst and former boxing champ, thinks fans got a real look at Haney’s talents in this loss. He said it on his YouTube channel: “Back to the drawing board for Devin Haney. Still a good fighter, but he just wasn’t a pound-for-pound guy. I think this exposed it. No ability to adjust whatsoever.”
Garcia came out swinging at the start of the fight. Haney withstood the onslaught and even took several early rounds. But Round 7 was a wake-up call. Haney was knocked down and put into survival mode. Garcia scored knockdowns in Round 10 and Round 11, too.
Malignaggi expected Garcia to have the power advantage. He was surprised that Haney couldn’t adapt to Garcia’s approach.
Malignaggi said, “I saw some people that were giving Ryan a chance, but I really couldn’t take it seriously based on, not just his antics, but his inability to have shown me different dimensions in the past. I really am not so sure he showed those different dimensions in this fight. It more so was exposing Devin Haney than it was at showing Ryan Garcia showing anything else.”
“Garcia still was mainly a left hook guy. His left hook has always been dangerous and we’ve always known that. Did he really set it up in any other creative ways that set up Haney in different manner than anybody else? I’m not really sure. He fought the fight in spots, he fought the fight where he was either going 100 miles an hour or he was fighting really, really quietly, and the big spots were huge spots and eventually took over the fight.”
Malignaggi dissected Haney’s résumé. He said Haney mostly defeated past-their-prime or over-hyped fighters. The exception? A quality win over Vasiliy Lomachenko. Malignaggi pointed to a two-fight series against George Kambosos Jr. as inflating Haney’s credentials.
Now that Haney’s not undefeated, Malignaggi wonders if critics will see him differently.
“The lightweight work that Haney really did that’s worth anything is Kambosos, who was famous for one win and hasn’t really looked good ever since,” Malignaggi said. “You’ve got to start reassessing Haney. … Haney put up a great effort last night. He just didn’t have the power and the versatility. I’ll tell you what, I had a better jab than Haney, that’s for sure. Haney’s jab should have been working overtime and he should have been less squared off as it is because if he had not been so squared up as it is, he wouldn’t have got hit with so many of those hooks. I don’t know what he’s doing.”
He added, “That’s another thing that you can’t compare Haney to Floyd Mayweather. I remember Team Haney and some of those Haney ‘D riders’ were jumping on Haney about how he’s going to be the next Mayweather. There’s only one Mayweather.”