Devin Haney returns with dull win over Jose Ramirez, narrowly avoids woeful record for inaction
Devin Haney’s past and future might be fights against Ryan Garcia, but his present Friday was the dullest fight of a highly anticipated Times Square card.
The former lightweight and super lightweight titleholder returned to the ring with a win over former unified super lightweight champion Jose Ramirez by unanimous decision (119-109, 119-109, 118-110) in New York. It was a bout low on action and progressively higher in bored crowd shots, with both men seemingly tentative to consistently pressure each other.
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The first round was fairly even, with Haney looking oddly frantic and averse to exchanges. However, he calmed down on the stool and enjoyed a steady advantage for most of the fight. He never really rocked Ramirez, instead throwing occasional punches but not much beyond that.
The numbers of the fight matched the eye test. The two boxers landed 110 punches total in 12 rounds of boxing, and their 503 combined punches thrown rank as the fourth-fewest in a 12-round fight ever recorded by Compubox. It is hard to overstate how uninspiring this fight was.
Rare is the fight in which the winner doesn’t even give an interview in the ring, but Haney was out of there soon after the decision was announced.
Is Ryan Garcia really next for Devin Haney?
Haney entered the fight as a massive -1000 favorite against Ramirez, who was coming off a loss in November to Arnold Barboza Jr. Barboza lost the card’s previous match to Teofimo Lopez Jr. by unanimous decision.
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The fight was Haney’s first in more than a year and his debut at welterweight. The last time he stepped in the ring, his opponent was Garcia — his following act for Friday’s Times Square event — and it didn’t end well for Haney.
Of course, it didn’t end well for Garcia either. Garcia’s botched weight cut took Haney’s belt off the table and a positive test for a banned substance wiped out Garcia’s majority-decision win, which was among the many things to go wrong for Garcia last year. A year-long suspension kept Garcia out of the ring, but Haney was similarly inactive.
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Now back in the win column, the question for Haney naturally becomes if a Garcia rematch is coming. If that’s really next, Haney didn’t exactly provide a compelling reason Friday to tune in.
Catch full results, highlights and play-by-play from Friday’s historic Times Square event here.
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