Notebook: Kambosos and Haney kick off fight week in Australia with plenty to say
Fury-Hunter heavyweight eliminator; Quick hits; Show and tell
A note to Fight Freaks Unite readers: If you have upgraded to a paid subscription, thank you! If you have not, please consider doing so to receive the most content. A paid subscription is also your way of keeping this reader-supported newsletter going and supporting independent journalism.
After George Kambosos Jr. traveled to New York and pulled a mammoth upset in a split decision victory over Teofimo Lopez to take his unified lightweight title in an action-packed fight of the year contender on Nov. 27, his greatest wish was to make his first defense at home in Australia.
He got what he wanted and could not be more pumped up to see the occasion about to come to fruition when he meets WBC titlist Devin Haney for the undisputed 135-pound world championship on Saturday (ESPN/ESPN Deportes/ESPN+, 9 p.m. ET) at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia, where a crowd of around 50,000 is expected for the fight, which will take place Sunday afternoon Melbourne time.
“It’s great to be back home. Five years of hard work. Everyone knows the story. I had to go through every bit of adversity,” Kambosos said on Monday as he and Haney came face to face to begin fight week with an epic staredown and several minutes of trash talk following a news conference in Melbourne. “I had to earn my belts, earned them the hardest way. Not like this guy. He got given a present. I earned mine. I took the best out.”
Kambosos has not boxed at home since 2017, instead fighting around the world pursuing his championship dreams with bouts in the United States, Malaysia, Greece and England.
“It is great to be back home, great to have the support,” Kambosos said. “I know that stadium will be buzzing with my support, but I just love to fight. Me and him in there, in that ring. It's a great moment for Australian boxing, and I am very excited.”
The winner will be the eighth male to be an undisputed champion in the four-belt era and the first to do so at lightweight, joining junior middleweight Jermell Charlo (2022), super middleweight Canelo Alvarez (2021), junior welterweight Josh Taylor (2021), cruiserweight Oleksandr Usyk (2018), junior welterweight Terrence Crawford (2017) and middleweights Jermain Taylor (2005) and Bernard Hopkins (2004).
“This is amazing. This is what the sport is about, and I made this happen. I chose the biggest fights possible,” said Kambosos, who from the moment he won the belts insisted he would fight a top opponent and not take a victory-lap fight. “I took out Teofimo Lopez. I was prepared to fight (former champion Vasiliy) Lomachenko. That was done. He couldn't make it because of the (Ukraine) war. No problem. Devin, wanna step up? And he did, OK, but he was forced into this. He's not my mandatory.”
Lomachenko is Kambosos’ WBO mandatory challenger and had agreed to the fight but withdrew in order to remain at home in Ukraine, where he is serving in the military to fight the Russian invaders.
“I could’ve fought anyone. I could’ve fought the garbage man outside if I wanted to, but I chose you,” Kambosos said to Haney. “You’re not my mandatory. I picked you. You're here, and everything is a go.”
Haney was happy take Lomachenko’s place, even leaving promoter Matchroom Boxing, where his contract had expired, to sign with Top Rank and Lou DiBella to get the fight.
“This means everything. It’s a dream come true of mine since I was a young kid,” Haney said of fighting for the undisputed title. “This is the biggest achievement of boxing. There’s nothing he can do in the ring that's better than me, and I will show it on fight night. I take nothing away from him. I think that he's a good fighter, but I just think I’m on a whole different level.”
Kambosos (20-0, 10 KOs), 28, insisted that winning the title and earning a career-high seven-figure payday — which will be dwarfed several times over for the fight with Haney — has not made him soft or lackadaisical. On the contrary, Kambosos insisted.
“I became more obsessed. I became champion and realized I loved this sport more than anything in the world,” Kambosos said. “I'm very blessed to be here. I made this happen. If it wasn’t for me, this wouldn't be happening today here, and bring it on.”
Haney (27-0, 15 KOs), 23, of Las Vegas, who will be making his fifth title defense since being elevated from an interim titleholder when Lomachenko opted to fight Lopez instead of him, said Kambosos can’t take all of the credit for the magnitude of the event, the biggest fight in Australia since Jeff Horn won a massively controversial decision over Manny Pacquiao to take his WBO welterweight title in July 2017.
“The government (of the Australian state of Victoria) would not have put up the money if (the fight) it wasn’t against me. Me or Loma, and then Loma couldn’t fight, so then you had to pick me,” Haney said.
Haney, who had his belt, was annoyed that Kambosos did not bring the title belts to display for photos.
“What was the point of even coming if you didn’t bring the belts? Aren’t we fighting for the belts? Didn’t the government put up the money for all the belts and didn’t the media come out because this is an undisputed fight between two champions,” Haney said. “Why wouldn’t you bring the belts? Fucking clown.”
Fury-Hunter eliminator
Heavyweights Hughie Fury and Michael Hunter will meet in title eliminator on July 2 at the AO Manchester Arena in Manchester, England, Boxxer announced.
The winner of the fight, which will headline a card on Sky Sports in the United Kingdom, will become the mandatory challenger for the winner of the June 11 fight between WBA “regular” titlist Trevor Bryan and current mandatory challenger Daniel Dubois.
Fury (26-3, 15 KOs), 27, of England, a first cousin of heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, has won three fights in a row since a unanimous decision loss to Alexander Povetkin in August 2019. In his most recent fight, Fury stopped Christian Hammer in the fifth round in October.
“I take the fights everyone avoids. Michael Hunter has fought the best and is up there with the best,” Fury said. “These are the fights I want to show who is the best fighter out there. I’m looking forward to this challenge. I believe I’m one of the best fighters in the world and this is another big fight to prove I stand with the top three in the world heavyweight division.”
Hunter (20-1-2, 14 KOs), 33, of Las Vegas, is coming off a heavily disputed split draw with Jerry Forrest in December in a 10-rounder most thought Forrest clearly won. Hunter’s only official loss was a decision to Oleksandr Usyk challenging for his cruiserweight world title in 2017.
“Hughie Fury has patiently built his way back to world title contention and has overcome big challenges along the way,” Boxxer promoter Ben Shalom said. “This is another big test against one of the most avoided fighters in the division.”
Quick hits
Showtime’s June 10 “ShoBox” card at Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, New York, which is being put on to coincide with the Hall of Fame weekend inductions, which includes the induction of Lou DiBella, who is promoting the card, in nearby Canastota, has been reduced from four televised fights to three. The eight-round heavyweight bout between the Brooklyn, New York-based former Ukrainian national champion Iegor Plevako (7-0, 4 KOs) and the SugarHill Steward-trained Kolbeinn Kristinsson (12-0, 6 KOs), of Iceland, has been canceled. Plevako had a close friend killed in the war in Ukraine and is not going to fight. The card is headlined by 2020 super heavyweight Olympic gold medalist Bakhodir Jalolov (10-0, 10 KOs), of Uzbekistan, against Belgium’s Jack Mulowayi (11-2-1, 7 KOs).
Manager Rick Mirigian, who is best known for guiding the career of former unified junior welterweight titlist Jose Ramirez, announced he has signed former junior lightweight titlist Joseph Diaz Jr. (32-2-1, 15 KOs), 29, of Downey, California, who is signed to Golden Boy Promotions but became a free agent in terms of management with the shuttering of MTK Global. “I'm pleased to announce I have signed Olympian and star Joseph Diaz Jr. to a multi-year management agreement and grateful for the opportunity as there was no shortage of people he had to choose from when making his decision,” Mirigian said. Mirigian also recently signed junior welterweight contender Jose Zepeda (35-2, 27 KOs), whom he once was against when Zepeda lost a close decision to Ramirez in a 2019 title fight.
The WBC announced on Monday that its 60 annual convention, due to take place in November in Kazakhstan, will be moved. “The present conditions in the region due to the ongoing (Russia-Ukraine) war have forced the WBC to postpone our convention in this beautiful country for the future,” the WBC said. “The WBC will be informing in the short term the exact date and site of this yearly gathering.” WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman told fight Freaks Unite that sites the convention could move to are Houston, San Antonio, Orlando, the Mohegan Sun resort in Uncasville, Connecticut, and Cancun, Mexico.
Late result from Saturday: junior welterweight Anthony Peterson (39-1-1, 25 KOs), 37, of Washington, D.C., knocked out Saul Corral (30-19, 13 KOs) in the sixth round at the Entertainment & Sports Arena in Washington. Peterson, a former lightweight contender and brother of retired former junior welterweight and welterweight titlist Lamont Peterson, who served as his trainer, has was fighting for only the fourth time since mid-2016.
Show and tell
Undefeated Kostya Tszyu was making the sixth defense of his IBF junior welterweight title with potential really big business in front of him: a big-money fight with Oscar De La Hoya if he could defeat hard puncher “Cool” Vince Phillips, who had a drug problem and was coming off a split decision loss to Romallis Ellis four months earlier. Tszyu was the clear favorite in their HBO “Boxing After Dark” headliner at the now-defunct Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey, but Phillips put it all together against Tszyu and pulled an enormous upset. He pasted Tszyu with right hands throughout the fight and dropped him with a left-right combination in the seventh round. As they headed for the 10th round the fight was very close: 85-85 on one card, Tszyu up 86-85 on one and Phillips leading 87-85 on the third. The scoring became irrelevant, however, when Phillips, who was bleeding from a bad cut over his right eye, hammered Tszyu with a right hand that rocked him in the 10th round and then quickly jumped on him. He unleashed about a dozen unanswered punches that rendered Tszyu out on his feet and falling into the corner post as referee Benjy Esteves waved it off.
Tszyu would rebound and go on to become the undisputed junior welterweight champion and get elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame, but Phillips’ knockout was his crowning moment and selected as upset of the year by The Ring magazine. The fight was on May 31, 1997 — 25 years ago on Tuesday. Here is a rare site poster from the fight in my collection.
Kambosos-Haney photo: Darren Burns
To upgrade your subscription please go here: https://danrafael.substack.com/subscribe
Thank you so much for your support of Fight Freaks Unite!
Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danrafael1/
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanRafael1
Follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DanRafaelBoxing
Top Rank/ESPN schedule for June is 🔥🔥🔥. Even HBO in it’s heyday, never had a month to match. And not a single fight card is PPV!
If 6 to 7 rounds are remotely close expect them to go home fighter. Haney if not by ko will need to win at least 7 rounds overwhelmingly to leave Melbourne as the World Champion, the real Lightweight Champion of the world and not an irrelevant WBA regular, irregular, interim bullshit one or a WBC silver, bronze or stainless steel champion.