Promoter Eddie Hearn believes Ryan Garcia’s power was the key factor in his victory over Devin Haney on April 20. Hearn says Ryan’s ability to hurt Haney (31-0, 15 KOs) was too much to overcome.

Although the New York commission overturned Haney’s 12-round majority decision loss and converted it to a no-contest, he still suffered a loss to Ryan (24-1, 20 KOs). The world saw what happened, and it still sees Devin as a loser.

Ryan’s blows caused significant damage

Hearn believes Haney was technically weak and made constant mistakes that night, starting with his poor defense. But his decision to face Ryan proved to be Haney’s undoing, as he lacked the punching ability or strength to win such a fight.

“He had the ability to hurt Devin with every punch he landed. The left hook was a powerful punch,” Eddie Hearn told All The Smoke about Devin Haney’s loss to Ryan Garcia. “The first round was a big problem and Devin took a while to get over it. I think, ‘He (Ryan) is going to get slack,’ but tactically Devin was really bad. His defense was leaky. He wasn’t on his feet properly.”

Ryan faded in each round but recovered quickly and continued to inflict pain on Haney. When Ryan took a break, Haney didn’t have enough power to take advantage of the breaks.

Haney’s weight problems and fatigue

“Then I started thinking, ‘How well did you (Haney) hold the weight?’ You go through the whole training camp with doubts in your mind about whether this fight was even going to happen,” Hearn said. “He’s always tense at that weight. How could he make 135 for so long and then he got hurt and knocked down (by Ryan).”

Haney looked exhausted at the weigh-in, which may have affected him on fight night. We had seen in Haney’s last fight that he didn’t belong in the 140 pounds, as he had rehydrated to 165 pounds for his fight against Regis Prograis last December.

That’s an absurd amount of weight and it was surprising that Prograis didn’t take advantage. Perhaps he was too old at 35. However, Ryan was able to capitalize on a weakened Haney and hurt him from the first round.

A battered and exhausted Haney

“I don’t think people really give him credit for what he went through that night,” Hearn said of Haney. “He took a lot in that fight. His (Haney’s) face after the fight, his jaw was wide open. He showed an incredible amount of heart. Imagine having to go through that pain. First of all, the guy (Ryan) is massive that night. You feel it and you know it, and then you find out the guy got caught in his pre-fight and post-fight tests.”

Haney had to go through a lot, getting knocked down three times, and the referee helped him a lot by deducting a point from Ryan for hitting on the break after sustaining an injury in the seventh round.

“He was huge. Devin needs a lot of fluids, but Ryan was huge that night,” Hearn said.