The story of Devin Haney used to be one of the best stories in all of boxing. It was the story of a father and son, against the world.

Devin’s father, Bill Haney, had a plan on how to make his son into one of the best boxers in the world. They went with a non-traditional route to the top. Bill and his son went to Mexico to start Devin’s professional career.

The Come Up

Devin fought several times in Tijuana as he was building up his resume. Once he got his shot to consistently fight on American soil, he took full advantage of it.

Devin left his opponents with more questions than answers while peppering them with his pinpoint accurate jab and straight right hand. He became a master of distance, knowing exactly where to strike from while staying out of danger from his opponents punches.

The Bay Area native defeated the likes of Zaur Abdullaev, Alfredo Santiago, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Jorge Linares, and Jo Jo Diaz on his way to earning a shot at the undisputed lightweight championship.

The unified champion at the time was George Kambosos Jr, who had just come off a huge upset win over Teofimo Lopez.

Kambosos held the leverage in the negotiations and wanted both the initial fight and rematch in his home country of Australia.

The Australian native also made a lot more money than Haney in their first bout. Kambosos took home $10 million and 70% of the Pay-Per-View revenue while Haney made $2.8 million from the fight.

Haney made Kambosos pay in the ring as he dominated the bout from start to finish, winning by a wide unanimous decision. The rematch was more of the same as Haney obliterated Kambosos for 12 rounds.

After his back to back dominant wins over Kambosos, Haney defeated Vasyl Lomachenko in a highly contested fight to defend his undisputed crown. Then moved up to 140 pounds and defeated former two-time world champ Regis Prograis in a one-sided fight.

Boxing fans loved this from Devin Haney. They love the fact that he was willing to take less money in the pursuit of greatness. Fans also loved how Haney was willing to take on whoever, wherever, in an era where matchups of top fighters were few and far between.

Dealing with Adversity

Devin Haney was set to take on Ryan Garcia is a mega fight for his WBC Super Lightweight title. The lead up to the fight was one of the weirdest lead ups that boxing fans have ever seen and that’s saying a lot!

Garcia was all over the place and seemed to be off mentally going into the fight. At times, it seemed like the fight wouldn’t happen due to all the off the wall stuff that was being said prior to. The California native also missed weight by three pounds for the fight.

So, going into the fight, Haney was a big favorite. Thirty seconds into the fight and it looked like Ryan Garcia fooled the world as he had Haney on wobbly legs after catching him with his signature left hook.

Haney would recover and fight well in rounds two through six then Garcia would take control again and knock him down in rounds 7, 10, and 11. Garcia won the fight by majority decision as judges Eric Marlinski and Robin Taylor scored the fight in his favor, 114-110 and 115-109 respectively. Max DeLuca scored the fight as a draw, 112-112.

I personally agreed with DeLuca’s scorecard as I thought the point deducted from Garcia during the seventh round, negated the knockdown, and Haney controlled the fight in the rounds where Garcia did not land a big left hook.

After the fight, the news dropped that Garcia tested positive for the banned substance Ostarine. After months of going back and forth, the decision of the fight was changed to a no-contest, meaning that Haney is still officially undefeated.

Take the Win

Getting the decision of the fight overturned was not enough for Bill and Devin Haney. Now, they are suing Ryan Garcia and Golden Boy Promotions.

They are suing Ryan Garcia for battery and fraud, stating that the fight was fought under false pretenses due to the positive test for Ostarine. They are claiming fraud because Garcia missed weight by three pounds and did not “make a true attempt” to make weight.

The Haneys are suing Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions for breach of contract, claiming that they did not get their complete payment from the fight. Other fighters, like Saul “Canelo” Alvarez have accused De La Hoya of bad business practices in the past, so that may be legit.

Now, the part where the Haneys lose me is in suing Garcia. Garcia had his win stripped away, had to pay a fine for the positive test, and got a suspended for a year. At this point, the Haney’s are only reminding people of the loss.

This is “sucka like behavior” from the Haneys. The fight should be remembered as a moment that Devin Haney got knocked down but continued to get up against a fighter who is ultra talented and may have had an unfair advantage. But instead we are constantly reminded of the four rounds where Garcia shined because the Haneys won’t let it go.

This whole ordeal has made Devin Haney look worse than Garcia, when Garcia was the one who tested positive for a banned substance.

It is time for Devin Haney to hire a new trainer and get away from his dad in the business sense. We have seen it plenty of times in boxing where the boxers had to move on from their father as a trainer.

The way for Devin to get back into the good graces of logical boxing fans is to get back in the ring and remind us of how great he can be. Not by trying to erase the past, embrace it and overcome it.