George Kambosos Jr. Believes Devin Haney Will Vacate Lightweight Titles
George Kambosos Jr. thinks Devin Haney’s time at lightweight is over.
Haney is the current unified lightweight champ and has until Friday to determine if he is going to defend his WBC belt against Shakur Stevenson. With that, Kambosos Jr. expects Haney to vacate the belt and move up to 140lbs, which would allow Kambosos Jr. to fight for the IBF belt.
“I believe the titles will be vacant,” Kambosos told BoxingScene.com. “I believe he’s gonna move up. He’s a very big 135-pound fighter. Obviously, we saw it in the weight cuts, especially in the second fight with me and Devin. It was a very tough weight cut for him. I couldn’t believe, you know, the way he came into that weigh-in. I said, ‘I’m just gonna touch this guy and he’s gonna go down,’ the way I was feeling. But he’s got a very good team, a very professional team, great dieticians and great coaches. I think his next move has to be at 140. He’s gonna vacate those belts and we have put ourselves in a great position right now to be fighting for one of them vacant belts.”
George Kambosos Jr. is set to face Maxi Hughes for the IBO lightweight title and is also an IBF elimination match. In the lead-up to the fight, Devin Haney has messaged Kambosos Jr. to give him pointers ahead of the fight.
Should Kambosos Jr. win, he isn’t sure who he would fight for the IBF belt but does expect Haney to move up to 140lbs.
“There’s a respect there,” Kambosos Jr. said. “At the end of the day, like he said straight after the fight, he was very respectful and he said, ‘You changed my life.’ And I said, ‘Hey, you changed my life, too,’ so there’s a lotta respect there. I think even with the buildup of the first fight, you know, as much as I was trying to promote the fight and I was a bit crazy in saying certain things … there was always a lotta respect from each other. Moving forward now, it’s been good. Obviously, I supported him when he fought [Vasiliy] Lomachenko [on May 20]. I came in [to Las Vegas] and watched the fight. And obviously he’s supporting us in our next fight.”
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