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Devin Haney’s comeback: new weight class, new fighting style?

Devin Haney’s comeback: new weight class, new fighting style?
Posted on | Posted on Theodore

Former two-weight world champion Devin Haney hints that he will soon return to the ring to continue his successful career.

On the way to Riyadh

Haney (31-0, 15 KOs) posted on social media that the sport has not been the same during his four-month absence. His Excellency Turki Alalshikh responded with a positive message on X, saying: “Do your job, Champ. I’ll be waiting for you in Riyadh.”

If Haney accepts Turki’s offer to fight in Riyadh, he can easily secure one of the spots in the upcoming Artur Beterbiev vs. Dmitry Bivol fight on October 12 at the Kingdom Arena.

That would give Haney, 25, just two months to prepare for the contest. But for a young fighter his age, that should be more than enough time, especially if it’s a warm-up fight at 147 pounds against an underdog or a second-tier fighter who poses no threat to him.

Adaptation for survival

It will be interesting to watch Haney’s return to the ring to see if he can continue his successful career in a new weight class at 147. What is obvious is that Haney will have to change his fighting style if he wants to compete at welterweight.

As we saw in Haney’s fights against Ryan Garcia and Jorge Linares, he doesn’t have the punching strength or the chin to stand in the pocket and fight with his opponents, and he needs to stop holding as much as he has been doing because it puts him in the line of fire for fighters who throw short punches.

We saw that Ryan Garcia often hurt Haney when he tried to keep him in the clinch, as he had done against many of his previous opponents.

Haney has had four months to recover from his loss to Ryan Garcia on April 20th and hopefully that will be enough time for him to return for a fight in October.

Ryan hurt Haney several times during the fight, essentially knocking him out in the seventh round when he was knocked down four times.

The referee helped Devin by counting only one of the knockdowns and taking a timeout to penalize Ryan for his counterpunch hit without warning.

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