Two days before the biggest fight of both fighters’ careers, there is a relative lack of buzz around Las Vegas for the undisputed lightweight title fight between Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko.
Thursday’s undercard press conference was a typically unremarkable affair that, in isolation, did little to reflect the significance of the main event. In Haney, that main event features one of the world’s most exciting young champions against a challenger, in Lomachenko, who is among the finest fighters of all time.
To compare the media room at the MGM Grand with a month ago for the build-up for the fight between Gervonta Davis and Ryan Garcia, however, is to be reminded that neither fighter has truly crossed over. The clean-living Haney – though proficient in his use of social media – is not a social-media attraction nor marketing material on a par with Garcia. He is also not associated with Floyd Mayweather in the same way as Davis, whose following also owes partly to the notoriety he carries around with him as a consequence of a succession of unsavoury incidents in his life outside of the ring.
Where numerous A-list celebrities attended Davis-Garcia – a non-title fight at a catchweight of 136lbs – and on the two days before the fight the media room was filled with high-profile retired fighters making themselves available to speak about their rivalry, there is no such celebrity or presence of retired fighters around Haney-Lomachenko, even though many of those fighters will be aware that it may even be the superior fight.
“I think it’s a hangover from the [successful] pay-per-views with Tank-Garcia and [Calub] Plant-David] Benavidez,” one experienced figure working on the Top Rank promotion speculated to ProBox TV.
There also remain numerous tickets for sale at the MGM Grand Garden Arena – a smaller but more historic venue than the T-Mobile, which staged the sold-out Davis-Garcia – and Top Rank’s Bob Arum has similarly recognised the extent to which social media interest potentially “distorted” last month’s fight.
Early on Thursday evening ProBox TV made plans to meet Russ Anber, Lomachenko’s respected cutsman and cornerman, and by coincidence, when doing so saw Lomachenko and an associate stroll largely untroubled across the lobby of the MGM Grand. That he resists surrounding himself with an entourage no doubt contributes to his ability to do so – and that he is a Ukrainian with a limited grasp of English will have done little to help the crossover appeal of his latest fight. Equally notable, once again, regardless, was to witness how small he is ahead of a fight with a fighter destined, at the very least, for 140lbs.
