Jamel Herring is tired of hearing people attach "racist" to Devin Haney's "I will never lose to a white boy in my life" comment regarding Vasiliy Lomachenko.
"In order for this to blow over, you got to let it go," Herring told DAZN's Ak & Barak recently. "Don't even mention it at all."
The WBO junior lightweight champion did make it a point, however, to caution the 21-year-old WBC lightweight champion, Haney, about making a statement like that by evoking boxing legend Bernard Hopkins.
During the buildup toward Hopkins fighting British boxer Joe Calzaghe in April 2008, Hopkins infamously uttered the statement that he would "never let a white boy beat me. Never." Calzaghe responded with an incessant in-ring motor and high punch volume to throw Hopkins' words right back in his face, as he earned a spirited split-decision victory. Using that as an example, Herring, although unwilling to call Haney's statement racist, did say it wasn't smart.
"It's not a smart thing, I ain't gonna lie," Herring said. "It wasn't a great statement to make. Especially we've seen with Bernard Hopkins, when he said it and he ended up losing. Every time Bernard fought somebody who was white, they kept bringing that up.
"Every time (Haney) gets in there with somebody who's potentially a good fighter and is white, they're going to bring that up," he continued. "If anything, it definitely wasn't a great statement to say. It's probably going to follow him for the rest of his career."
After making the comment on 78SPORTSTV's YouTube channel about Lomachenko, the unified WBA/WBO lightweight champion, Haney did attempt to clarify the remark and the backlash he received over it with the following tweet: