George Kambosos Jr. entered the biggest fight of his career to date armed with a rematch clause in the event he came up short.
The Sydney native did and is prepared to exercise said clause, even if he’s among an infinitesimal group who would actually want to see him fight Devin Haney a second time.
The previously unbeaten lightweight conceded the lineal/WBA/IBF/WBO championship in a twelve-round, unanimous decision loss to Las Vegas’ Haney, who retained his WBC title in becoming undisputed lightweight champ. Judge Pawel Kardyni (118-110) scored the bout in line with most home viewers watching the ESPN telecast Saturday evening (Sunday afternoon local time)from Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia. Judges Zoltan Enyedi (116-112) and Benoit Roussel (116-111) turned in the kind of scorecards that allow losing fighters to justify their belief of the fight being closer than what it was—and in this case, grounds to do it again.
“I’m going to take a few things from this and look forward to doing it again at the end of this year,” Kambosos stated after suffering his first career defeat as a pro.
The loss came a little more than six months after claiming the lineal championship and unified titles in a twelve-round, split decision win over Teofimo Lopez Jr. (16-1, 12KOs) last November 27 at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theater in New York City. Kambosos (20-1, 10KOs) entered as the IBF mandatory challenger, with the fight going to a purse bid and thus not allowing for a rematch clause to be placed in the contract.
As much was not the case in the fight with Haney (28-0, 15KOs), as the fight was neither ordered by any of the sanctioning bodies nor did it go to a purse bid.
Haney agreed to the rematch clause which came in a contract signing to a multi-fight deal with DiBella Entertainment and Top Rank. The fight was signed soon thereafter, leaving Kambosos with a dangerous assignment on a night he could have easily settled for a routine title defense for his overdue homecoming. Instead, Kambosos dared to be great and afforded Haney the opportunity to do the same.
“We’ll do it again,” repeatedly insisted Kambosos. “Look, I gave him the shot. If I hadn’t given him this shot, he wouldn’t have had his moment right now. So, we’ll do it again.”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox