Devin Haney and Vasiliy Lomachenko will meet May 20 at what was the likeliest site for their fight all along.
BoxingScene.com has confirmed that their 12-round, 135-pound championship match will be held at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Their fight for Haney’s IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO lightweight titles will headline an ESPN Pay-Per-View show that night.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Sam Gordon first reported on Twitter that MGM Grand Garden Arena would likely be the venue for Haney-Lomachenko.
Promoter Bob Arum – whose company, Top Rank Inc., represents both boxers – informed BoxingScene.com in mid-January that Haney and Lomachenko had agreed to all contractual terms for their bout and that it would take place May 20. Top Rank placed a hold on MGM Grand Garden Arena for May 20 in January.
Haney had hoped after traveling to Saudi Arabia for the Tommy Fury-Jake Paul fight February 26 that he would defend his titles against Lomachenko there. That never became a realistic option, thus Arum’s company picked the site where they had expected Haney-Lomachenko to take place since they agreed to fight two months ago.
After back-to-back unanimous-decision victories against Australia’s George Kambosos Jr. in Melbourne, Haney will have his own hometown fight of sorts when he battles Lomachenko, a three-division champion from Ukraine.
The 24-year-old Haney (29-0, 15 KOs) was born in San Francisco and lived in nearby Oakland until he was 14 years old. He has long resided in Henderson, Nevada, a suburb of Las Vegas, and does much of his training in Vegas.
The 35-year-old Lomachenko (17-2, 11 KOs), the number one contender for Haney’s WBC belt, has boxed six times in Las Vegas since he turned pro in October 2013.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist lost his WBA and WBO lightweight titles to Teofimo Lopez in his last high-profile fight in Las Vegas. Fans weren’t allowed to attend that 135-pound championship unification bout because it was held in Top Rank’s “bubble” at MGM Grand Conference Center during the COVID-19 pandemic in October 2020.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.