Despite a valiant performance from Vasiliy Lomachenko, Devin Haney retained his undisputed lightweight world title at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Haney was awarded a unanimous decision victory after twelve high quality rounds that were befitting of a fight of such magnitude.
Despite the result, many observers felt ‘Loma’ had potentially done enough on the night to get the victory and was perhaps a touch hard done by.
And Top Rank boss Bob Arum is clearly one of those, judging by the comments he made to Lomachenko and his manager just before the post fight press conference – picked up by his microphone.
“You guys won that fight – easy, easy!”
The two master boxers were well-matched throughout, with the both men only having brief pockets of dominance in the contest.
Consistent body work was a staple of Haney’s output, whilst Lomachenko landed crisp shots to the head that had the champion buzzed towards the end of the fight.
Their fight was a very difficult one to score and there will certainly be no claims of robbery in terms of the man who had his hand raised, but most analysts and fans had things a shade closer than the three ringside judges, who ultimately gave it clearly to ‘The Dream’ with 115-113, 115-113, and 116-112 being the scores.
A majority of boxing fans online seem to believe The Ukrainian had done enough in the final third of the fight to nick it, and he unsurprisingly felt the same way, telling the ESPN broadcast team that ‘the people saw what happened.’
Haney now potentially moves forward to a fight with old adversary, Shakur Stevenson, who entered the ring after the final bell to let his countryman know he felt he was lucky to get the nod.