*Just in case some of you might have missed it there was one of the greatest fights to have happened this year. This one took place down under in Melbourne, Australia between George Kambosos Jr. and Devin “The Dream” Haney in a bout that was a case of history repeating itself. You see way back in December 1908 an African American fighter named Jack Johnson traveled to Sidney Australia to challenge Tommy Burns for the world heavyweight title at Rushcutters Bay. There were only half a dozen black people there amongst the crowd of some 40,000 people present when Johnson defeated Burns and became the first black World heavyweight champion.
Last weekend WBC lightweight champion Devin “The Dream” Haney traveled to Melbourne, Australia to go against IBF, WBA, and WBO champion George Kambosos Jr and after putting on a superb display of boxing for twelve rounds, he came away as the undisputed lightweight champion of the world in front of a sellout crowd of 50,000 thus repeating boxing history.
The real drama began before the fight ever took place as the Australian embassy denied Devin’s father Bill Haney a visa to enter the country and for a while, there was a lot of chatter in and around boxing circles that this was going to have an effect on young Devin by not having his father in his corner. Bill sent in Zab Judah’s father Yoel to substitute in the meantime while promoter Lou Dibella worked feverishly to work the situation out.
Those of us who know Devin knew that he was capable of and skillful enough to get the job done with or without his dad being there but you just can’t discount the fact that having him there would be an added bonus since it was Bill who developed his son from the amateur days when they operated the Hit Factory Boxing Gym back when he was just 9 years of age.
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The government does not play around when it comes to issuing visas they almost didn’t let me because of something that I did back in 1971.
As I arrived at the prefight press conference you could sense the tense atmosphere early on as Kambosos started speaking to the large contingent of media present from around the world by calling Haney a “rat” apparently trying to get into his head. But Haney showed great self-control and kept his composure throughout all of the name-callings and told the audience that he would let his fist do all of the talking in the ring.
And on the next day when the fighters got on the scales, Haney stepped up first and weighted a fraction below the limit at 134 plus but when it was Kambosos turn he went over the 135 limit and had to come back a couple of hours later to do it all over again and this time he made weight at exactly 135 lbs.
The next night as the fight began you could see that the majority of the sold-out crowd of 50.000 plus people were behind Kambosos as they booed Haney when he entered the ring and throughout the fight as he peppered Kambosos with jabs, hooks the body, and combinations and put on a superb display of boxing for twelve rounds and I personally didn’t give Kambosos any. And at the end of the night, all three judges gave the fight to Haney by unanimous decision as he repeated boxing history just as Jack Johnson did back in December 1908.
Folks I got to tell you something, I had the most rewarding experience traveling to Melbourne as I have been blessed to be embraced by Bill Haney his family, and the whole team.
And although the trip seemed to take forever to get there (some seventeen plus hours each way) it was indeed well worth it. The awkward thing about it was the fact that winter had just begun over there and it was indeed very brisk.
The fact remains that Devin Haney put on a great performance to win all the belts and is now the new undisputed lightweight champion of the world and is in a position to call his shots better than anyone.
There are still some guys out there in the division that are laying in the cut like Gervante Davis, and Ryan Garcia (and don’t forget about Vasyl Lomanchenko) they all can’t wait to get their hands on Devin as I always say we’ll see what happens.
“When the tide goes out, that’s when you’ll find out who’s been swimming naked- Warren Buffett
Mohammed Mubarak can be reached at [email protected] for your comments. He’s been around boxing as an artist, and photographer, since 1982 and you can feel free to go to his website mubarakart.com
and qmubarak06 on Instagram and view his works.
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