After Ryan Garcia took out Luke Campbell last week he became the mandatory challenger to Devin Haney’s WBC ‘world’ title. Garcia, however, made it clear that he’s much more interested in a fight against Gervonta Davis, leaving Haney to look elsewhere for a notable lightweight fight. And if Garcia is currently tied up with Tank, Haney is honing in on Teofimo Lopez, whom he still doesn’t regard as the undisputed lightweight champion.
“The main fight I want to be made is with Teofimo Lopez for all the belts, for the real undisputed king,” Haney said. “135 is not easy for me to make at all. I’ve been saying this for a while now. It’s hard to make weight, but for these big fights I’ll sacrifice and stay there. But if I can’t get a big fight with one of the other three [Lopez, Davis, Garcia], I’ll go to 140.”
Haney would continue by saying that if Lopez really considers him to be an ‘email’ champion and not a serious threat, why not face him to just grab his belt and get him out of the way?
Lopez has recently spoke to that during a recent conversation with Fight Hub TV, and essentially claimed that while he’s certainly not avoiding Haney, he believes a win over Haney doesn’t do much for his stature considering that he already knocked off the previous #1 guy in the division in Vasiliy Lomachenko.
For now Haney hopes to make his ring return in April with fights against Javier Fortuna or possibly Jorge Linares in play if Ryan Garcia indeed passes on his mandatory title shot.