Devin Haney will keep his WBC lightweight world title, as Jake Donovan of BoxingScene.com was the first to break the news that Haney will keep his title with a new term place in front of his champion status, as Haney will be the WBC lightweight champion-in-recess.
This comes on the heels of Mike Coppinger of ESPN.com, announcing that Haney would face the WBC junior welterweight world Champion Regis Prograis on October 28th, none of which has been confirmed via press release. What will now happen is Haney will not be regarded as the WBC lightweight champion, but hold a form of the WBC title.
This comes on the heels of Shakur Stevenson and his team petitioning to have his mandatory challenger status enforced when it comes to Devin Haney, or to fight for the vacant lightweight world title against number-two ranked fighter in the WBC rankings which is Vasiliy Lomachenko. If Haney returns to the lightweight division he'd have to pursue a fight with the current WBC lightweight world champion, and it would make the bout a 50-50 purse split.
Today boxing reporter, Elie Seckbach, was inside the gym with Regis Prograis where he got an exclusive on his YouTube channel EsNews.
"Me and Haney is happening," said Prograis to EsNews. "I signed my part, I am just waiting on him to get back with me, but it looks [like] everything is official with me and Haney. It's [expletive]. [Haney] can't keep his belts."
Prograis furthered that he feels that Haney is trying to have a safety net so that if he were to lose to Prograis he'd still have leverage when going after other fights.
"Let someone else fight for all those belts at [lightweight]," furthered Prograis. "[Haney] is trying to have a protection plan. He is trying to come up to [junior welterweight], see if he can fight me, see if he can get this belt, [but Prograis explains he believes he will KO Haney].[That would give Haney] a cushion at [lightweight] to say [he is still] undisputed."
Haney is currently a promotional free agent after completing a three-fight co-promotional deal with Top Rank and Lou DiBella's DiBella Entertainment. During that contract, Haney faced George Kambosos twice winning and defending the undisputed lightweight world title, and following that up with a unanimous decision win over Vasiliy Lomachenko.
As of right now, no official date has been given for this fight other than it will happen in the fall.
Stevenson took to Twitter to respond with the following.
