Unified lightweight champion Devin Haney believes boxers should follow the example of MMA fighters like UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya.
Haney defends his lightweight titles against former pound-for-pound great Vasiliy Lomachenko on Saturday in what is a pretty much a super fight between two of the best boxers in the world.
Last month, Ryan Garcia and Gervonta Davis also fought each other with both fighters risking their undefeated records to prove who really was the superior boxer.
Unfortunately, this is a rarity in boxing largely due to politics among other things. According to Haney, the obsession of an undefeated record created by Floyd Mayweather who went 50-0 over the course of his professional career is also a big factor.
Haney notably made the comparison to MMA and pointed to how Adesanya was able to bounce back from his knockout defeat to Alex Pereira and become even more of a star.
“In the UFC, those guys fight each other. Lose? Fight again,” Haney said on the Pivot podcast (via ESPN Ringside). “Some of them even get bigger after a loss. Look at Israel Adesanya. He lost. He came back and is even bigger than he was before.
“Floyd kinda messed up the game with the undefeated is everything so guys don’t wanna fight each other they wanna keep their 0.”
There is absolutely nothing false in what Haney's said.
The money's there in boxing and yet, we're still waiting years to watch a heavyweight title unification clash or see Errol Spence Jr. fight Terence Crawford.
Hopefully, the likes of Haney, Garcia and Davis change things for the better.
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