Random thoughts: Credit Haney, Kambosos for making the right fight at right time
Pumped for Beterbiev-Smith; Fury's fake retirement; HOF moment I loved; Berlanga the biter; King Kyoguchi; not enough WBA progress; hypocritical Floyd; Inoue, Donaire futures?; much more!
Tons of boxing random thoughts…
A lot of fighters could learn a thing or two from Devin Haney and George Kambosos Jr., men who did not look for an easy path to money or glory.
After Kambosos beat Teofimo Lopez to take his unified lightweight belts in November, he only wanted a top opponent for his first defense when he could have easily done a victory lap fight at home in Australia and still made a ton of money. Believe me, his team would have preferred he go that route.
But Kambosos said screw that. He signed up to fight Vasiliy Lomachenko, the three-division champion, former pound-for-pound king and still an elite lightweight. That’s called wanting a real opponent.
When Loma dropped out to remain in Ukraine to serve in the military against the Russian invasion, WBC titlist Haney raised his hand and said he’d fight Kambosos. And it wasn’t just Twitter play. It was real.
Kambosos accepted Haney right away seeing it as a chance to become the undisputed champion even though he would be the underdog on home soil.
And how badly did Haney want the fight?
There was never any argument about going on the road to Australia to fight Kambosos in his backyard and since his promotional deal with Matchroom Boxing had expired, he also did what he had to do — switched promoters to Top Rank and Lou DiBella and broadcasters from DAZN to ESPN to make it happen.
Off he went to Australia and he and Kambosos made a really big fight, one that drew a crowd of 41,129 to Marvel Stadium in Melbourne for the second largest attendance in Australian modern boxing history behind the 51,053 that attended Manny Pacquiao-Jeff Horn in 2017.
According to DiBella, the fight sold close to 70,000 buys on pay-per-view in Australia, which is considered an outstanding number. For comparison purposes, DiBella said Pacquiao-Horn did close to 60,000 in Australia.