Devin Haney put on a boxing masterclass when he outpointed George Kambosos Jr in June to become the unified lightweight champion – the first man to do so since the four belt era.
What made the victory even more impressive was the fact the 23-year-old travelled to Kambosos’s home country, Australia, to fight for the belts in front of 40,000 raucous Aussies.
A rematch clause was put in place during the negotiations for Kambosos to get another shot Down Under should he get beat.
Soon after the fight reports surfaced that Kambosos had already activated his rematch option, however, rumours started to circulate that the former champ might take a different route and have a ‘tune up’ bout before facing the American again.
In recent interviews, Haney himself hinted that his next opponent might not be Kambosos:
“We don’t know. We’re weighing our options. Possibly, possibly not. We just gotta see what makes the most sense for me and my team. October, I will be fighting but we don’t know who yet.”
‘The Dream’ had even talked about a possible fight against former Lightweight number one Vasiliy Lomachenko. The Ukrainian is also hoping to return in October after some time away from the sport. As for Haney, his priority lies in making the biggest fights possible.
“I’ve been saying that for a while now. If it makes sense, the biggest fights, then let’s do it. And we can make it make sense. It’s nothing that we can’t figure out, come to an agreement and make these fights happen like I did while out in Australia.”
However, it does now looks like the immediate rematch is the most likely outcome. Renowned boxing journalist Dan Rafael claims the fight is in the works for October 16 at the Rod Laver Stadium:
Kambosos does [want the rematch] and the sequel is being planned to headline a Top Rank Boxing on ESPN card on Oct. 15 at famed Rod Laver Stadium — home of the tennis Australian Open — in Melbourne (where it will be Oct. 16 Australia time).