Devin Haney Remains Undisputed Controversially Over Lomachenko

A close, hard fought battle in Las Vegas went the way of the champ, even if the crowd didn’t agree. This, as undisputed lightweight champ Devin Haney scored a unanimous decision win over former three division world champ Vasiliy Lomachenko.

The official scores were 116-112 and 115-113 x 2 for the Californian Haney to retain his WBC/WBA/IBF/WBO belts against the Ukrainian challenger. A decision that was met with resounding boos by the crowd of over 14,000 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in the Top Rank Boxing main event,

STILL THE KING.@RealDevinHaney | @BudLight pic.twitter.com/JVykoY9IPi

— Top Rank Boxing (@trboxing) May 21, 2023

Haney, now 30-0, 15 KOs, scored effectively with his hand speed and particularly, left hooks in the first part of the fight. However, the veteran former featherweight, super featherweight and light weight world title holder began to turn up his offense from the fourth round on. Lomachenko, now 17-3,  used a solid right jab out of the southpaw stance and repeatedly ripped the champ with quick hard combinations down the stretch.

Big Fight Weekend scored the bout 115-113 for Lomachenko, while our insider Dan Rafael had the fight 114-114 for a draw.

The critical final round was scored for Haney by all three judges and on the cards of Tim Cheatham and David Sutherland, the 10-9 round for Haney was the difference in the bout not being officially a 114-114 draw from them. The third judge, Dave Moretti, had given the champion Haney the 7th-10th rounds to put him comfortably up on his card. He also gave Haney the 12th for a final margin of four points.

The final Compubox numbers however favored the challenger Lomachenko. They tallied him out landing Haney overall at 124-110 and that included, 95-90 in power shots. And, while Haney had a sizable lead in their metric headed into the championship rounds, they had Lomachenko landing 44 total shots to just 17 for Haney in the final three frames.

“I gotta take my hat off to Loma. He’s a future hall of famer. He’s my toughest opponent. He came out very crafty. It was a great fight for the fans,” Haney told ESPN in the ring.

When asked about the significance of the win? “It put me in the history books forever. I just beat a future hall of famer. It means everything to me and my team.”

Haney was making the second defense of his four belts after winning an undisputed 12 round decision over Australian George Kambosos last Summer. Haney validated the first victory by beating Kambosos, again by 12 round domination, in the immediate rematch in October.

The 35 year old Lomachenko, who stepped aside from challenging Kambosos himself last year due to the Russian invasion of his homeland Ukraine was gracious in defeat, repeatedly crediting Haney in broken English and eventually, was shown in tears by ESPN back in his locker room.

Lomachenko, a two time Olympic Gold Medalist as an amateur, was fighting for.a world title for the first time, since he was beaten in a unified title showdown with Teofimo Lopez by decision in October of 2020. He had won three consecutive bouts since that defeat to put him in position for the Haney matchup.

Lomachenko had won 12 consecutive title fights in three divisions before Lopez beat him two and half years ago.