This Saturday May 20th, live at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, Devin ‘The Dream’ Haney (29-0, 15 KO) looks to defend his undisputed lightweight championship against Vasiliy ‘The Matrix’ Lomachenko (17-2, 11 KO) in a highly anticipated bout between the two top lightweights in the world.
This bout has boxing fans going back and forth as to who comes out on top with Haney, the young lion who is the king of the division testing himself against an all time lightweight great with high boxing IQ. Both men pride themselves in their technical prowess as this figures to be a high speed chess match.
Haney going up against Lomachenko has long been discussed and fantasized as once upon a time ‘Loma’ was the unified champion and Haney was knocking on his door for a title shot, however, due to promotional differences the fight never materialized considering Top Rank who managed Loma at the time didn’t think Haney was a big enough name to sign the contract for.
Fast forward four years later, it is now Haney who is the undisputed champion, looking to prove doubters wrong, coming off back-to-back wins against former champion George Kambosos Jr to become the youngest undisputed champion in the modern era of boxing.
The two key advantages Haney holds against Loma are youth and reach. Haney, 24 is ten years younger than Lomachenko who just turned 35 in February. Additionally, Haney who is 5’8 to Loma’s 5’7 holds a 71 inch reach to Loma’s 65.5 inch reach.
When Lomachenko lost his bout against Teofimo Lopez in October 2020, Lopez utilized his reach advantage to keep Loma at bay with his jab, most likely Haney will use this same approach considering ‘The Dream’ holds one of if not the best jab in the game today.
The Ukrainian boxer had surgery on his right rotator cuff after that loss to Lopez, that being his second surgery on his shoulder as he tore that same rotator cuff in 2018. Since losing to Lopez, Loma has fought three times defeating Masayoshi Nakatani, Richard Commey, and Jamaine Ortiz, so perhaps Lomachenko was hampered by injuries in his loss to Lopez but if there’s one thing for sure, as technically gifted as ‘Hi-Tech’ is, Father Time is undefeated.
