Devin Haney and George Kambosos Jr are officially locked in for their mandatory rematch, which will take place on Saturday, Oct. 15 U.S. time from Melbourne, Australia. To not be confusing, if you are in Australia, it will be on Sunday, Oct. 16.
Haney (28-0, 15 KO) handily beat Kambosos (20-1, 10 KO) in June at Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium, and this fight will be held at Rod Laver Arena, an outdoor tennis stadium which will probably be able to hold around 15,000 for the fight.
So it’s clearly not expected to be the draw the first bout was, and with good reason. There is little intrigue in this matchup, it’s just that Haney — who fully unified the lightweight division with that June win — had agreed to a mandatory rematch, also to take place in Australia. And despite any attempts to get out of that, there was just no way that Kambosos was going to pass on what is by far the biggest fight available to him, and Haney’s team had signed that contract.
On the Haney side, basically this just has to be dealt with. He has to go back, win again, and then in 2023 he can fight someone like Vasiliy Lomachenko, perhaps. Top Rank currently plan to have Lomachenko back in late October against Jamaine Ortiz, so the timing will line up if both win as expected.
The rematch will also have direct competition for TV eyeballs that night, as PBC have Deontay Wilder set to return against Robert Helenius in a FOX pay-per-view main event.