RAin falls in thin, piercing lines over Hell's Kitchen as Devin Haney enters “Victory.” Boxing Gym. Somewhere along Ninth Avenue, an ambulance passes through traffic, its siren turned into a long mournful ribbon, sliding past the walls of the gym. He nods to a few familiar faces, takes off his Supreme Vanson leather jacket, and begins to leave town. His father, Bill, appears a step behind him, not so much entering the room as taking over it.
“The youngest absolute champion!” Bill screams half at the gym and half at himself. “He's done it on three continents! He's twenty-six years old and still making history! Let the sparks fly!”
The energy in the room seems to be leaning toward the Haney clan, as it always does. Devin keeps his head down after sitting on the ring apron and wraps gauze around his knuckles with the same slow, practiced patience he's shown since childhood. Bill continues to bark, rights, grievances and triumphs spilling out into a proud, protective crescendo. It's a familiar ritual for Haney: father and son perform together. Bill was there from the start, the self-proclaimed Richard Williams of the stricken business: promoter, strategist, architect and hype man rolled into one. He's been shaping that trajectory since Devin was just a boy, staging pro fights in Tijuana when U.S. commissions said he was too young. It's been a ruthless lever of social media lately. breathlessly touting his son's achievements. “Everything we built was built according to plan,” he says. “We believed in the plan before anyone else.”
When I first saw Haney up close, he was 17 years old, recently licensed thanks to a special exemption from the Nevada commission after starting 4-0 in Mexico and four round fight on the undercard of Manny Pacquiao vs. Timothy Bradley III in front of a sea of empty seats in Las Vegas. The speed of his hands was already blinding, his eyes were calm and alert, his movements were unusually confident for a teenager still growing into limbs. Nine years later, this silence has only strengthened. He glides around the ring, working the pads with former world champion Mickey Bey, his paws crackling like distant gunshots. Bey mutters faint instructions between bouts of excitement. Haney grins, crosses his legs and fires again.
Haney will challenge undefeated Brian Norman Jr for the WBO welterweight title on Saturday night in Riyadh. There are still three weeks left until the fight when we meet at an open training session in Manhattan. “I feel great: strong, sharp, happy.” A small smile appears at the corner of his mouth. “At 135 pounds, I struggled with the weights more than the guy in front of me. I was gaining weight and feeling exhausted. Now I can eat. I can train for skill, not survival.”
Two years ago, Haney seemed to be on an unstoppable rise. After defending the WBC lightweight title four times, he flew to Melbourne to beat George Kambosos Jr. and unify all four belts at 135 pounds. He came back again seven months later defeat him more convincingly. Then came career-defining win over Vasiliy Lomachenko in a battle that required extraordinary endurance and intelligence. After farewell to Regis Prograis With a 140-pound belt, Haney was 31-0, a two-division champion and a consistent negotiator pound-for-pound, all by age 25.
But overnight everything changed.
The fight with Ryan Garcia was almost completely overshadowed Garcia's erratic behavior both personally and online. Weeks of unraveling—or performative unraveling—have unsettled everything around the promotion. Garcia then weighed 143.2 pounds, 3.2 pounds over the division limit, which cost him money and a chance to win Haney's title, but gave him a clear physical advantage. However, Haney brought the fight to the end.
Nothing prepared the sport for the night in April 2024 when Haney's master plan was destroyed by boxing's biggest agent of chaos. Haney was knocked down three times, all with the same left hook, and declared lost by majority decision after 12 shocking rounds. The result was later overturned after Garcia failed a drug test for ostarineA performance enhancing drug that promotes muscle growth. But the footage of Haney being repeatedly slammed to the floor is much harder to erase from the public consciousness, let alone his own.
The Haneys then filed a lawsuit against Garcia, accusing him of fraud and battery, which only doubled the ridicule from boxing's cutthroat chatterbox class, a suit that has since been withdrawn. But even this, he admits, was never satisfactory. “It wasn’t me,” he says. “It was the business side. I'm a fighter. I want to give it back in blood. I never wanted to do that. But people around me were saying, 'You lost millions, you need to bring him to justice.' I understand that. But the truth is, I just want to fight. That's who I am.”
The rematch that could have rewritten the narrative never materialized. Haney had already signed his end of the contract, but Garcia lost to Rolly Romero before he was finalized on the Saudi-backed card. who took over Times Square. “We had a contract signed for the fight,” he says. “He didn't want a rematch. But I still want to bring him back in blood. I want to correct this mistake.”
On the same card, Haney's comeback against Jose Ramirez signaled that something was shaking. Haney won comfortably, but he mostly pirouetted around the perimeter, threw sparingly, flinched with feints and landed just 70 punches over 12 rounds. There were mitigating factors, of course: the 13-month layoff, the stress of holding down 140 pounds, the emotional wreckage of Garcia's nightmare. But the shift was noticeable.
Haney doesn't bother criticizing. “They'll still say something,” he says. “If you can hit, they'll say that's all you can do. If you have speed, they'll say it's because you can't hit. All I want is to keep beating the guys they put in front of me.”
That's why Saturday night in Riyadh is important. Opposite him will be Norman, undefeated with a record of 28-0 with 22 knockouts and the owner of one of the most brutal left hooks thrown this year: the punch that knocked down Jin Sasaki in June and announced his arrival. The victory will make Haney a world champion in the third division. Defeat would be a much more difficult workaround.
If Garcia personified chaos, Norman personified danger. A younger, heavier fighter steps into the ring with the confidence that Haney once carried. The fight happened very quickly, but Haney says the choice was deliberate. “I want to fight the best guys,” he says. “I went down the list. Ryan lost and he didn't want it. So what better guy than the top guy right now at 147?”
Haney respects Norman's potential, but not his mystique. “He's good,” he says. “But it's hard to tell how good he is. They put him in a group with guys who made him look the way they wanted. We'll see what happens when he gets in there with someone who can think.”
Moving up also brings relief. “I'm much happier,” he says. “My psyche [state] better. I can focus more on game planning rather than weight loss. At 135 everything in the camp was in moderation. Now I finally feel like I'm ready to fight again.”
He also became his own middleman, negotiating directly with promoters including Turki al-Sheikh. “I’ve been negotiating my deals for a while now,” he says. “I like what the Riyadh season does for boxing. The best fighters fight the best fighters. Everyone makes money. It's a good time to be a boxer.”
What keeps him going after the belts, criticism and business? The answer sounds soft but confident. “We set a goal for ourselves when we were kids,” he says. “I want my name to be mentioned among the greats when it's all said and done. I won't stop until I get there.”
“They said I couldn't hit. They said I couldn't take a hit. But I got up. I'm still here.”
