The fight between George Kambosos Jr and Devin Haney for the fully, truly undisputed lightweight championship of the world is 100 percent official, with ESPN set to air the card on Saturday, June 4 in the United States.
The fight will actually take place early on June 5 in Australia, which will accommodate a prime time U.S. television start time.
Kambosos (20-0, 10 KO) already considers himself undisputed, but there’s a sincere argument against it that has nothing to do with WBA “super world” and “world” titles, and everything to do with a series of lame WBC decisions back in 2019, after Vasiliy Lomachenko beat Luke Campbell to win the vacant WBC belt, adding to the WBA and WBO belts he already held.
By its own rules, the WBC should not have allowed the sitting titlist of another organization (let alone two) to fight for a vacant title, but sanctioning bodies do what they want, and Lomachenko is a star fighter who got special treatment. That special treatment continued when, instead of being ordered to face Devin Haney, who held the interim WBC belt, the WBC instead “elevated” Lomachenko to their newly made-up “franchise champion” designation, which has only been done for two fighters: Lomachenko at lightweight and Canelo Alvarez at middleweight.
In other words, it has been utilized clearly and only as a political favor to not force favored names to have to deal with mandatory challengers, and it’s not something done with any consistency. It was also not meant to be a status that could be defended, but when Lomachenko signed to fight Teofimo Lopez in 2020, the WBC wanted a piece of that action, so they allowed Loma to defend a belt that basically was meant to be a status symbol bordering on a prop, something to put in a trophy case. By that point, Haney (27-0, 15 KO) had long since been elevated to full title status, just as Jermall Charlo was at 160 when they did the same favor for Canelo.
But however you look at that situation, whether you’re correct like me or still holding on to the need to believe you saw something even more special than it was with Loma-Lopez in 2020, this fight will settle it. Haney has the WBC belt, Kambosos the WBA, IBF, and WBO, and sure, count the “franchise” belt if you want. We all agree Gervonta Davis’ WBA “world” title means nothing.
The 28-year-old Kambosos has not fought since his big upset win over Teofimo Lopez in November, a much-delayed fight where Kambosos proved everything he’d said about both himself and Lopez true on the night in New York, while the 23-year-old Haney was last out on Dec. 4, beating Joseph Diaz Jr in Las Vegas.
The two fighting on back-to-back weekends set them up nicely to square off next, though the original plan in place was for Kambosos-Lomachenko, before Lomachenko decided to stay in Ukraine, opening the door for this fight to be made.
Now that it’s 100 percent set, who do you have winning Kambosos-Haney?