Devin Haney has been moved to #10 in Ring Magazine’s pound-for-pound list despite losing effort in his last fight against Ryan Garcia on April 20th.
Questionable Move Despite Recent Loss
It’s a controversial move on Ring Magazine’s part to elevate Haney (31-0, 15 KOs) to #10 on their list and remove Errol Spence from that spot. Fans don’t like to see fighters that are coming off a loss being elevated to pound-for-pound status.
Haney already had a strike against him due to his controversial win over Vasily Lomachenko last year in a fight that appeared to lose by four rounds.
Even if the Ring staff wanted to dismiss Haney’s no-contest fight against Ryan, the controversy surrounding Devin’s win over Lomachenko should have been enough to keep him off the pound-for-pound list.
Ring Magazine’s Updated Pound-For-Pound list
1. Oleksandr Usyk
2. Naoya Inoue
3. Terence Crawford
4. Canelo Alvarez
5. Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez
6. Artur Beterbiev
7. Dmitry Bivol
8. Gervonta Davis
9. Junto Nakatani
10. Devin Haney
The Ring staff have considered that Haney’s twelve-round majority decision loss against Ryan Garcia was overturned and ruled a no-contest due to Kingry’s positive test for the banned PED Ostarine.
Still, that performance by Haney, 25, was so poor that he doesn’t rate a top 10 spot in any pound-for-pound lists.
Ryan knocked Haney down three times, and some believe the referee gave him a huge break by not counting an additional three knockdowns in round seven.
The fight could have easily been stopped in round seven, as Haney was dropped four times. That round was a pure massacre, and the fight should have been stopped.
The judges scored it 112-112, 114-111 and 115-109.
Additional Factors Hurting Haney’s Popularity
Another factor hurting Haney’s popularity was his decision not to defend against his WBC 140-lb mandatory opponent, Sandor Martin. The sanctioning body subsequently stripped him of his title and gave him the ‘Champion in Recess’ tag.
That made Haney look like he ducked Sandor, and lacked the self-confidence to take that fight after what Ryan did to him.
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