Eddie Hearn said that Devin Haney wanted to be paid well for his tune-up fight, not the money usually paid for those types of matches. He feels that BLK Prime may have been willing to pay Haney (31-0, 15 KO) as much money as he wanted.
Expensive setup
According to Hearn, Devin still wants the money to pay for the compelling fights fans want to see. That’s unrealistic for a gimme tune-up fight designed to knock off the rust, show him off against his main opponent, and boost his confidence.
Hearn says Turki Al-Shiekh wants big fights, and that doesn’t align with what Haney needs to adjust to get him ready for his rematch with Ryan Garcia. If Devin faced a good opponent on Turki’s card, there’s a good chance she’d lose if it was a half-decent guy with few hard punches.
Turki probably wouldn’t give Haney a soft job like George Kambosos Jr., Regis Prograis or Jorge Linares. He would like real quality like Jaron Ennis, Richardson Hitchins, Eimantas Stanionis or Brian Norman Jr. All of those fighters would probably beat Haney in style.
Hearn said Boxingscene that Haney wasn’t the type of guy who would be willing to accept $500,000 to $1 million for a tune-up. He “I wanted to be well paid” for a fight that would not normally rate such a hunt.
“For the amount of money he wants to have a comeback fight, it’s not easy because, in general, a comeback fight is not a good fight. Who will pay for it? If you can find someone who will pay big money for a comeback fight, it might be BLK Prime.”
This suggests that Haney still sees himself as a big name or champion despite losing to Ryan Garcia in a three-knockout, 12-round majority decision loss to Ryan Garcia on April 20 of last year. The loss was later overturned by the New York State Athletic Commission due to Ryan’s positive test for the banned PED Ostarine, but fans still saw it as a loss.
Haney didn’t remotely resemble a champion or a top 10 fighter against Garcia, and he definitely wasn’t a guy who deserved to be “paid well” for tuning.
It will be interesting to see who Devin goes up against at BLK Prime on March 25th. Will they let him fight a can of tomatoes and pay him top dollar or insist on value for money? If so, Haney will likely lose and ruin his chances for a rematch with Garcia unless he wants to fight him after the loss. I wouldn’t leave it up to Kingry to do that because he doesn’t seem interested in risky fights either.
“March, I’m back,” said Devin Haney on X. BLK then replied, “See you on March 25th at BLK Prime.”
