Devin Haney’s attempt to convince the public he was slighted by Matchroom Boxing―when they refused to bid on his purse bid against World Boxing Council (WBC) mandatory Sandor Martin―has further been scrutinized by Matchroom’s chairman Eddie Hearn. Hearn unveiled he had contacted Haney’s lawyer the day before the scheduled purse bid, and had actually attempted to intercede and allow Haney to bypass a fight with Martin to stage a unification fight with Australian International Boxing Federation (IBF) champion Liam Paro instead.
Notably, Liam Paro (25-0, 15 KO’s) conquered the IBF super lightweight (140 lbs) title on June 15th, three days before the scheduled purse bid between Devin Haney (31-0, 15 KO’s) and Sandor Martin (42-3, 15 KO’s) that were held on June 18th. Martin’s promoter, Top Rank, won the right to host the fight after bidding $2,420,000 as the sole bidder within the purse bid proceedings.
Notably absent from this purse bid was a promotion to bid for Haney, which prompted Haney to put out a message scathing Matchroom for not participating in the purse bid.
“Wow Matchroom… nasty work.“
Devin Haney
Ironically, Haney himself had posted a statement prior to this post where he asserted he should have bid on the fight himself:
“I should’ve bid myself…
Devin Haney.“
This fact was also mentioned by Matchroom chairman Eddie Hearn when he explained his reasoning for not bidding on the Haney-Martin purse bid.
“Devin Haney vs. Sandor Martin is not a fight that will provide commercial success for anybody around the levels required to win that fight. Do I want to lose a million bucks on Devin Haney against Sandor Martin? No, thank you very much.
“I will do if I had a contractual obligation, and you’ve pledged your loyalty to towards me [Matchroom]. He also has Devin Haney Promotions―it’s all very nice having your logo on the backdrop, but are you prepared to stick your money and balls on the line? The answer that we saw is, ‘no’.”
Eddie Hearn
As was highlighted previously, Haney continues to operate as a free agent despite his recent association with Matchroom, and further appears to have his own promotion called Devin Haney Promotions which appears to be more so used as a brand to sell various sorts of apparel rather than an actual boxing promotion.
More interestingly, details have now emerged surrounding a potential step-aside deal that Haney could have arranged with IBF 140 lbs champion Liam Paro; which could have resulted in a super lightweight unification bout.
“We may work together. I spoke to Devin Haney’s lawyer the night before the [June 18th] purse bids. We wanted to make Liam Paro versus Devin Haney in a unification [bout], and I said, ‘speak to the WBC, come back to me [and] let me know, we’ll talk to DAZN about the biz [business],’―[but] we never heard back from him.“
Eddie Hearn
Devin Haney now no longer holds the WBC 140 lbs title after relinquishing it following an approved request to be made the WBC champion-in-recess1. Dominican fighter Alberto Puello (23-0, 10 KO’s) is now in possession of the title, and is slated to make a mandatory title defense against Sandor Martin in the near future.
Haney’s subsequent decision to go on a one-year hiatus further draws questions as to why he had voiced his complaints surrounding the purse bid in the first place, with his decision to take a [temporary] leave from the sport―indicating he never had any intentions to fight Martin or Paro in the first place.
Hearn’s mention of a conversation with Haney’s lawyer suggests the fighter had prior knowledge that Matchroom wouldn’t participate in the June 18th purse bid, raising even more eyebrows regarding his public criticism of Matchroom.
- a term used in boxing to describe a champion who has vacated their title due to an inability to defend it, often because of injury, illness, or personal reasons. When a champion is declared in recess, their title is vacated, and another boxer can be elevated or fight for the now-vacant title to become the new champion. If the champion-in-recess recovers and returns to competition, they typically face the new champion to reclaim their status and title. ↩︎
