David Haye wants to see a rematch between Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko - as long as the judges are neutral.
The scoring for Haney’s victory over Lomachenko for the lightweight title at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas has received a lot of criticism.
The majority of spectators, including Haye, believed that Lomachenko had performed well enough to secure the victory.
"I’ve watched it once, I was there live for the fight," Haye told ProBox TV "It was a tight fight. Lomachenko looked like he was doing some real good work in there. He looked like he finished very, very strong… After the decision in Vegas it looks like he was on the end of a raw deal, if it was one point, but the scores significantly appeared as though it was one sided and it wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination.
"Lomachenko put some great combinations together, it looked like he landed the more significant blows, he hurt Haney on a couple of occasions,The skill level was as high as it gets. It was great to see two athletes going at it. It just shows how good Lomachenko is to go up through the weights. Y’know I felt for him after the decision, I really did… I know that team Lomachenko opposed Dave Moretti, and he was the guy that had that wide score, so it’s kind of understandable.
"But I’d love to see that fight again, I think it makes sense to run it back again, neutral judges, even if it’s back in Vegas. It’s not fair for Ukrainians coming to America with three American judges for all of the belts. That didn’t make sense to me but it was a great fight. It’s a shame that it was kind of soured by that decision, if it was a draw you kind of half understand that."
When asked about the likelihood of a rematch, Haye focused on Haney's determination to prove himself once again.
"If he’s the champion and wants to prove himself, he’s definitely got an opportunity to right that performance," Haye stated.
"Watching the post-fight interviews he seemed like he was quite confident and comfortable that he won the fight. So if he’s confident, he’s done it once, let’s do it again. He’s only getting better, y’know I assumed wrongly that Lomachenko was past his best, going up too far in the weight divisions… but it didn’t look like that on the night. Can Lomachenko summon up one more big night? I think he can, off the strength of that, so let’s do it again, neutral judges and let’s get a fair result where everybody is happy."He didn’t take that much punishment, he wasn’t rocked badly, If he would’ve taken a lot of abuse and actually got dropped a couple of times, okay, but he seemed quite fresh at the end. He finished strong, ran ten, eleven, and twelve. He really pushed, really trying to convince the judge that ‘yeah, I finished strong,’ but it wasn’t enough. Unfortunately for him, the judges were looking at something very different to what he was actually doing."
