Eddie Hearn hopes to be working with Devin Haney again after the American’s two-fight series with George Kambosos is concluded.
Haney has entered into a deal with Top Rank and Lou DiBella to secure a showdown against Kambosos for the undisputed lightweight world championship.
The 23-year-old Californian had been promoted by Hearn but became a free agent which helped enable him to put his WBC title on the line against the WBA, IBF and WBO champion. No official announcement has been made but it was reported on Sunday that it could go ahead on June 5 in Melbourne. Kambosos will have home advantage for the first fight, and should Haney win he is now contractually obliged to face the 28-year-old Down Under in a rematch.
Speaking to The DAZN Boxing Show, Hearn said: “His plan is to go and get those belts and then come back and hopefully we’ll be linking up again, but this is obviously the only fight out there for him.
“The deal that we had planned was that the rematch would take place in America. I saw that it said the rematch would take place in Australia which is something we didn’t or wouldn’t have agreed to on behalf of Devin. In our deal structure the rematch was in America, we felt that would only be fair.
He’ll have these two fights in Australia, if he wins the first one which I believe he will and then no doubt we’ll talk after that.”
Hearn, whose shows are exclusively broadcast on DAZN, explained how the streaming platform were unable to land the rights to Kambosos Jr v Haney.
“DAZN were unable to reach a deal with Lou DiBella, George Kambosos’ promoter to air the fight. I believe one of the issues for them was the Australian rights weren’t available for the fight and that changed the structure of the deal quite a bit. I think it was more beneficial to him [Lou DiBella] in some ways to do the deal with ESPN.
“At the end of the day it has to be economical for everybody and I guess they didn’t feel that the fight was as big in America and wanted that global value as well, as a global platform.”
Haney joined Hearn’s USA Matchroom branch in April 2019 and went on to fight six times for them.
The WBC champion fought twice last year picking up wins against Jorge Linares and Joseph Diaz.
“I want Devin to become undisputed,” said Hearn. “Loyalty is great and he’s a very loyal kid but at the end of the day you can’t miss an opportunity like this.”