Comments Thread For: Bill Haney on Lomachenko: This is a Fight That We Know The People Want

[sirculturevulture]

I can say that at least in my case, Bill is right -- I'd love to see this fight. However, it's not guaranteed to be a thrilling match-up. If Loma can get around Haney's best-in-show jab, he should be able to hurt
him. Then it might get interesting.

Teofimo Lopez created the blueprint for challenging Loma and it involves turning with Loma but most importantly, making him feel your power early (Ortiz recently tried to ape it but failed miserably). That approach isn’t in play here as Haney doesn’t have lights-out power. Haney’s best bet is to jab and ass-in hug his way to a points victory. And he might just accomplish that.

[Cypocryphy]

I definitely would.

But you know Haney if he is fighting a guy who he thinks is a threat and better than him, he’ll just hug and jab all night. Lomachenko might be too old and too distracted by the war to deal with Haney’s in-ring shenanigans.

I really hope Loma wins. Haney is terrible for bringing in new boxing fans. Nobody wants to see all that hugging and weak punching for 12 rounds every single night he fights.

I’ve yet to talk to a casual that claims they like watching Haney. All I hear is the obligatory “he’s good, he hasn’t lost”. That’s it. That’s all he has going for him. Nobody actually likes watching him.

I've been doing a lot of film breakdown for this fight, and Devin does a couple things very well but the rest not so well. I'm with you 100 percent. Loma looked off in that fight with Ortiz, at least in the beginning. He was getting caught with punches that he normally doesn't get touched by. I think it was more ring rust and facing a guy who spent a month in sparring, and who had a team that put together a fantastic plan. Ortiz did a fair amount of holding and hitting too. (And if anyone reading wonders why there was a 117-111 scorecard, it's due to the fact that holding and hitting are not scoring blows. Those uppercuts Ortiz landed on Loma came off of a body grab with the lead. So there were a lot of punches that while they had an effect on Loma didn't count toward the scorecard. I also hope that same judge is one of the judges for Loma vs Haney.)

Anyway, what Haney does very well is controlling distance, primarily with the jab, and then when the pocket collapses, controlling the inside fighting by clinching, holding and hitting. He has a great step back and he's very accurate with his punches. That's what he does well at. What he doesn't do well at is defending and getting off the line. He lingers on the line, hands down. That's an invitation to disaster against Loma, especially when Loma throws four and five pieces all the time. That's how Linares wobbled him. Explosive combination punches is Haney's kryptonite, which is why I have Ortiz beating Haney if they ever fought. I noticed that there were a lot of similarities between how Ortiz fights and how Haney fights. The difference being that Ortiz has a more athletic style, with explosive combination punching, and better inside game. Haney has no inside game anymore. He tried to have an inside game against Linares, and it nearly cost him the fight. He tried again with JoJo, and JoJo buckled him a couple times, hurting him whenever he allowed JoJo to collapse the pocket. After that, Devin just said **** it, I'm holding or clinching anytime the pocket collapses. That has made him a weaker fighter, in my opinion.

This is getting long, but the other thing I noticed is that Haney fights at a slow pace, throwing two-pieces and then stepping back. And even at that pace, his punches start to get a bit wild and lazy in the back half. So even at a pace that's half the pace that Loma sets, Haney begins to fade in the back half. You'll see that much of the connects his opponents have are in the back half, and that's due to fatigue making him slower.

I think people in the know will be putting money down on Loma, especially because Loma will likely be the underdog. Can you imagine?

BTW: I know that I picked Kambosos to win the first fight, but that was due to my believing that Haney wasn't going to jab and grab his way to a victory. I honestly didn't see that coming, so I thought it would be a close fight, one where Kambosos would edge it out on crooked scorecards. But I think we all know who the real Haney is now, a guy who fights scared because that's what he does: He fights scared.

[JakeTheBoxer]

This is the end of a super hyped Loma. With 16-2 record still being considered as a "super boxer" because of Arum and the other gangsters. In the meantime a lot of amazing undefeated boxers never get credit!

Being undefeated means sh.it.

[al-Xander]

I hope Bill Haney is not saying this is what the people want, therefore it's a huge fight and my boy deserves huge money. Or I hope he's not questioning why it's not on PPV.