The next stage in Devin Haney’s development occurs on May 29th when the WBC lightweight champion defends his belt against the vastly experienced Jorge Linares in Las Vegas.
The lightweight division, arguably boxing’s hottest weight category, has saw some significant results in recent months with Teofimo Lopez and Ryan Garcia scoring emphatic wins over Vasyl Lomachenko and Luke Campbell respectively, and now it’s the turn for Haney to make a statement.
Linares, a former three weight world champion with a number of notable wins, is looking to add the valuable scalp of Haney to his glittering ledger. The fight, eagerly anticipated in boxing circles, was a big talking point on the most recent episode of The Ak and Barak Show, exclusive to DAZN and Sirius XM Fight Nation, where both hosts discussed Linares recent boast that Haney isn’t ready for him.
“You can say that Devin Haney hasn’t fought the top competition yet,” said Barak. “But he’s outclassing everybody and shutting everybody out. How can he [Linares] say he’s not ready. You can’t say ‘he’s not ready’ because you never know. You really don’t know.”
With Linares’ confidence seemingly coming from comparing his own body of work against that of Haney’s, the talented Venezuelan does represent a significant step up in class from the likes of Yuriorkis Gamboa and Alfredo Santiago. Despite the gulf in experience, Barak is of a similar opinion to his co-host and believes that Haney will be ready on fight night.
“If he [Haney] isn’t ready now then he ain’t never going to be ready,” stated Barak. “He’s a world champion. In terms of readiness, he’s going to be as ready as he’ll ever be. I do feel that this fight is a lot harder than people think it is.”
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