Devin Haney and George Kambosos Jr. had their first face-off yesterday since their last fight which ended in Haney becoming the youngest undisputed champion in the sport of boxing via unanimous decision. This rematch is scheduled to take place on October 15th in Australia.
What makes this rematch so interesting is the belts that Devin Haney brought with him to the event. In DontaesBoxingNation‘s latest video, he covers the first face-off between Devin Haney and George Kambosos for their rematch to highlight a major detail regarding the belts that were brought to the event as Devin Haney drops the franchise belt!
RELATED: DEVIN HANEY BECOMES UNDISPUTED CHAMPION
Devin Haney vs George Kambosos Jr Rematch Face Off
Devin Haney, who is the Undisputed Champion of the lightweight division decided to only show up to the face-off against George Kambosos Jr in their upcoming rematch with all the title belts.
Now, if you are a casual fan you may not notice, but Haney is not showcasing all of the belts that he has in his possession. He currently holds six belts, but as you all can see in the picture above he is only holding 4 belts.
Dontae points out that Devin Haney is not carrying the franchise belt and he is also not carrying the Ring magazine belt. Now you may be thinking “well six belts are not easy to hold on stage at the same time.” WRONG! As boxers, many are very competitive and want as many belts as possible. After defeating Kambosos in their last bout, Haney can be seen below wearing 5 belts (excluding the Franchise title).
Ring Magazine Disrespects Devin Haney on Pound-for-Pound List
One of the belts not shown in the rematch face-off is the Ring magazine belt. Now if you have not been following Devin Haney on Twitter, he has publicly shared his opinion on why he does not believe the Ring magazine is being just in their pound-for-pound list by including Vasiliy Lomachenko on the top 10 list, who has two losses on his career and currently does not hold a world title OVER the undisputed lightweight champion himself.
This is a completely idiotic thing for Ring magazine to do because Devin Haney earned the right to be Ring magazine’s champion while being the Undisputed champion in the lightweight division as well. His choosing not to wear the belt is his way of sending a statement that he will not promote or support an organization that does not support him yet makes him pay sanctioning fees to hold the title.
Devin Haney Holding the Ring Magazine Belt as a Kid
To clarify, when Devin was young, he was given the opportunity to hold the Ring magazine belt when his Godfather, Zab Judah, was making a title defense. It is only right that you would think that this belt meant a lot to him because it was the one belt he got the chance to hold that kept him inspired throughout his career to pursue all of the belts including the Ring magazine belt.
Ring magazine used to be a premiere boxing magazine that many fighters respected; however, ever since they were bought and is now owned by Oscar DeLaHoya, it has lost its ability to fairly credit the boxers who have earned their titles.
The Franchise Title Is Not a Belt
The second belt that Haney is not wearing is known as the Franchise title, which is a new designation by the WBC and not an actual belt. By not wearing it, Devin Haney is sending a quiet, but a HUGE message that he only wants legitimate belts.
The WBC Franchise Title is an honorary title that was created in 2017 and has never been defended. It is not recognized by the WBC as an official championship title. The WBC states that the Franchise title is to bestow the honorary franchise champion title to a boxer who has been an exemplary world champion, who has defended his title several times and is widely recognized as one of the best boxers in the world in his weight division.
However, the title amongst hardcore boxing fans has become known as the NBF Belt. What does NBF mean? No Black Fighters! Since it was created, it has been used as an immunity belt because it would give certain fighters on the hope list immunity from having to fight black boxers who are considered dangerous mandatories since the Franchise title allows the champion to not have to fight mandatories.
How Vasiliy Lomachenko Avoided Devin Haney with the Franchise Title
It is funny that Lomachenko is on the Ring magazine’s pound-for-pound list because if you are not aware when Lomachenko was the WBC champion and his mandatory was Devin Haney instead of fighting his mandatory he decided to vacate the belt. This is how Devin Haney became the WBC Lightweight champion. Then out of nowhere, Lomachenko becomes the WBC franchise Champion.
The same thing happened with Canelo Alvarez. As soon as Jermall Charlo became Canelo’s mandatory and he was ordered to either fight Jermall or vacate the belt, Canelo decided to vacate the belt as well and all of a sudden the next day he became the franchise Champion Fighters like Lomachenko. Once Lomachenko was defeated by Teofimo Lopez, Teo proudly used the Franchise title to avoid Devin, until George Kambosos defeated him. George wanted to use the Franchise belt to avoid Devin to fight Lomachenko, but Lomachenko was fighting in the war and he was forced to fight Haney.
However, have you noticed that none of the black fighters has ever wanted to represent this belt? The title itself is ironic because boxing is supposed to be about fighting the best. Most black fighters don’t want to be protected because they don’t need to be protected and that is the statement that Devin Haney made when he posed without that fake belt.
Why Devin Haney Drops the Franchise Belt
The truth is that things were not supposed to play out this way based on boxing politics. They never expected Devin Haney to become the Undisputed champion in the lightweight division. The franchise belt was made to prevent fighters like Devin Haney from becoming the real Undisputed Champion. Fighters like Lomachenko used it to avoid his mandatory Devin Haney.
Teofimo Lopez tried to use the franchise status to claim that he was the Undisputed lightweight champion to justify not fighting the only WBC champion (Haney) to really become Undisputed. That backfired when he lost to Kambosos, someone he thought was easier competition than facing Haney; however, Kambosos did the exact same thing after he defeated Teofimo by claiming he was undisputed despite Haney clearing being the WBC Lightweight champion.
The plan was working but it was short-lived when George Kambosos was forced to take the Devin Haney fight. While Kambosos kept telling the public that his next opponent is going to be either Devin Haney or Lomachenko, Kambosos later admitted that Lomachenko was always his planned opponent to fight next until Lomachenko became unavailable because of the war.
“First off, I want to start off by saying I’m not a kid so he can stop calling me a kid. I’m a man and I will show him that in the ring. He did not choose me he was forced into this fight.”
“You were chosen boy.”
Leading up to the first fight Kambosos started using a lot of racist undertone talking points toward Devin Haney. He became the bad guy in the movies where the villain always gets what is coming to him. While Kambosos was playing a role, Haney cut that role short towards the end of the movie because George ended up getting the karma that was coming to him for his lowball tactics.
In the movies, people often rooting against the villain because the villains are clearly villains. The main reason a lot of us watch movies like that is to see what type of consequences the villain will end up suffering. Unfortunately, in the real world, the villains are not easy to spot and people who usually are rooting for the good guys in the movies are actually rooting for the villains in the real world.
While we don’t see a lot of happy endings in the real world or maybe I should say enough of them, it is definitely a beautiful thing to see when it does happen, especially when Haney beat Kambosos and shut his racist talking points down and took all of his belts and he is no longer wearing or representing that corrupted franchise title.
If you would like to watch the full video, feel free to check it out below:
