Ryan Garcia sent a message to Devin Haney following his victory over Vasiliy Lomachenko to say that he thought the judges made the wrong decision.
The two former amateur opponents have never met in the professional ring, but it’s thought they will one day up at 140lbs.
Before that happens, Haney has the obligations of an undisputed lightweight champion, which most recently took the form of a defence against the elite Ukrainian.
Despite Haney’s unanimous decision, many felt Lomachenko did enough to win the belts. Garcia agrees, and told Bradley Martyn’s Raw Talk that he said as much to the champion.
“I messaged [Haney]. I said, ‘yo, bro. I thought Loma edged it out but try to look past the hate that you’ve been taking on and just look forward.”
Garcia went on to say that the fight could still be classed as a ‘robbery’ despite its close nature.
“I was there. I thought Loma edged it out. People say, ‘Oh, don’t call it robbery.’ Okay, but when somebody deserved to win, that’s still somewhat of a robbery, even if it’s by one point or two points. [Lomachenko] probably should have won.”
He listed the things he felt Lomachenko did better.
To me, from what I saw up close, Loma landed the more effective shots. He was hitting him cleaner. Devin was just kind of posing a lot, like, you know, jab, but it wasn’t really clear. I didn’t see anything clear.
But Loma’s mistake is running it up on Devin and just suddenly starting to back up. I think he’s always fought that way though. I’m like, dude, you’re already running it up. Devin doesn’t have an answer for you at that moment.
Maybe it’s a conditioning thing. I don’t know. I think part of [Haney] knows that it was really, really close. But I don’t want to take anything away from Devin.”
Haney is expected to fight once, at most twice more at 135lbs before moving up to super lightweight – something Garcia has already confirmed he’s doing himself.