The American champion clears the air surrounding his preferred weight.
Devin Haney at lightweight saw him pick up every belt there was to win, becoming undisputed champion and barely putting a foot wrong in the process.
Aside from being briefly wobbled by an end-of-round left hook from Jorge Linares and getting a debatable decision over Vasiliy Lomachenko, Haney was practically flawless throughout every fight he made the 135-pound limit.
And when he moved up to super-lightweight, he posted a shutout over Regis Prograis and won the WBC title in the process.
And then he fought Ryan Garcia.
Haney, who we’d only seen momentarily buzzed before, was dropped three times and went on to lose by decision. But afterwards, it came out that Garcia failed both a pre- and post-fight drug test, resulting in the bout being overturned to a no-contest.
Questions remained over what effect the Garcia fight had on Haney. After all, the loss may have been scrubbed from his record, but he still took all those punches, all those left hooks that hurt him time and time again.
When Devin Haney returned over a year later, it was against Jose Ramirez in his welterweight debut. And while Haney won widely on the cards, it was an incredibly low-output affair that ended up being what was at the time the fourth-lowest amount of punches in CompuBox history.
This just made people even more convinced that Haney was still haunted by what happened against Garcia, which is why he was made the underdog for the first time in his career when he took on Brian Norman Jr., the undefeated WBO welterweight champion.
Norman was heavy-handed, and he was one fight removed from a bone-chilling knockout over Jin Sasaki. He scored this knockout with a left hook, a punch that Haney had proven susceptible to.
Well, it wouldn’t matter on the night, because Haney went on to outbox and even drop Norman in a performance that surprised plenty in the boxing world.
Now the new champion, Devin Haney has managed to gain a new set of believers, but some wondered whether he would ever go back down to super-lightweight, considering there isn’t a fighter at welterweight who many would consider a real challenge for him.
Well, ‘The Dream’ has now cleared it all up, stating in a quote Tweet to a fan reply that he is never going back down to the 140-pound division.
This presents some interesting possibilities in the future, as many would expect for Haney to move up to super-welterweight at some point, and there is no shortage of talent for Haney to test his mettle against there.
Fans may not yet have seen the true extent of Haney’s quality.
I’m not ever going back to 140.. I’m champion at 147 https://t.co/bT6XXIZwJl
— Devin Haney (@Realdevinhaney) January 29, 2026
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