Devin Haney recently retained his four lightweight belts in an extremely close contest with Vasiliy Lomachenko. In the aftermath, the Ukrainian has cried robbery.
Many fans are siding with Loma, who felt he did enough to win the fight clearly.
Post-fight, he told reporters that he felt he could even take his foot off the gas in the final round, saying he didn’t need to win it because he had won the rest.
It’s a decision that Roy Jones Jr disagrees with entirely – no matter how the the action has played out up until that point. He criticised the approach in an interview with Fight Hub TV, believing that it could be the reason Lomachenko lost.
“Everybody got so mad about the Haney decision. For me, if you’re not the champion, why are you giving him a round off? You take round 12, the last round, off? You don’t give no round off. You not the champ, he is!”
“And guess what, had you won that round, you would’ve had a draw across the draw. Had you got a two-point round that round, you’d have won the fight clearly. Come on, bruh. It’s not rocket science.”
“As hard as he pushed you at that weigh-in, and you gave him a round off? Come on. Lomachenko is one of my favourites, but you can’t take a round off when you’re in championship boxing and you fight a man for his belts.”
As for the outcry from some sections of fans about the decision going the wrong way, the four-weight world champion doesn’t agree.
“In my opinion, [Haney] deserved to keep his title. I ain’t gonna say he beat him, because I thought they both did good in the fight.
It could go either way, but in a fight that close they’re gonna leave the champ the champ. To take the belt from the champ you gotta dominate the champ.”
Lomachenko has rallied for a rematch, but it looks like Haney may defend against Shakur Stevenson next, with a move up to super lightweight being the alternative.