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Garcia already lost to Tank, and Haney already got beaten up by Garcia. Another L on Garcia's record isn't going to erase that beating in Haney or anyone else's mind. The rematch is about redemption for Haney.Comment
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I think it's a good fight to see where Haney's head is at. Ramirez has a slight reach advantage, making him only the second opponent for Haney after Garcia for whom that's true, IIRC. He's not pillow fisted, but he's also not super fast or powerful. He can be outboxed, as he's pretty limited, but he's only lost to Taylor and Barboza so far. Haney SHOULD be able to win a clear decision with his usual jab, body work, and tie up game. If he struggles, I expect him to get wrecked in any future fights at the highest level.
If he's made adjustments to his defensive game, it's a reasonable opponent to test them out. If I were Ramirez, I'd want to try to out jab him, or at least getting him thinking about winning a jab game, then time him with the counter left hook to see if he's still dropping that right hand when he jabs from outside. After that, his liver will be open for the taking. Ramirez will need to use timing because Haney is almost certainly faster. It probably won't be the most exciting fight to watch if Haney's head is right, but if he's hesitant and Ramirez isn't totally shot, Ramirez has a chance to retire him for good. If Bill hasn't gotten him to fix his defensive flaws, one of the two of them should definitely hang it up.
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I haven’t heard anything to that degree
Teo ‘S name has been mentioned for a while now and Teo himself apparently has mentioned Garcia’s name
A friend of mine has told me that is why he actually was there for the ring awards courtesy of Turki to actually finalize this deal
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Styles dictate strategy. Ramirez is a front foot fighter who wants to put you in the corner and slug it out. Haney doesn't have the power to push him back and walk him down. Some of that comes down to technique, because the way he punches is predicated on speed to target at the expense of weight transfer, and weight transfer is further compromised because he's trying to keep distance open. So he's guaranteed not to have power. He's actually athletic enough that if he used a normal punching technique, he probably could have decent power, but he's got WAY too much muscle memory to unlearn his habits. I don't want to call them bad habits, because he's been successful and it works for his style. But it's not the traditional technique, that's for sure.
So Haney has to fight on the back foot and the jab is the most important punch in boxing. If you can't or don't establish the jab, you'll lose to anyone with the skill to do so. Working behind a good jab is the essence of the sweet science. Haney isn't exclusive about that. He goes to the body, and has a rear hand lead that's fast and effective enough to keep opponents honest. And he's got good lateral movement to get his offense in and force the other guy to try to walk him down.
What he lacks, IMO, is the footwork to take angles and use positional defense, and a good enough set of guards and controls to protect himself when he's not the vastly bigger man, and that's why he ends up having to resort to the clinch. I wish more pressure fighters studied the clinch. There's a great Lomachenko video about how accepting the clinch is optional. Rewatch his fight with Nakatani to see some of the tricks a front foot fighter can use to punish someone who relies too on tying up. But if he's ACTUALLY worked on defense (which I doubt because I think Bill Haney just isn't a good enough trainer to really help him with that) then he won't need to rely on the clinch for his defense nearly as much, and Ramirez is the right kind of opponent to show if he's made that adjustment. If it looks like the usual Haney fight, you can probably put it down to Ramirez being a little too shot, but Haney has his head straight but hasn't his flaws. If it's a really close fight, I think that going to be evidence that Haney is shot mentally, and likely won't ever recover from the trauma of getting destroyed the way he did. But if we see Haney dominate without relying as much on clinch, and we see new defensive skills, such as head movement that's not static or on the ropes, footwork that forces Ramirez to be the one to initiate the clinch, hand fighting (looks like fencing with the jab), controls and pins (using a long guard with footwork to escape, or stripping/pinning the high guard to land offense), then we'll know we've got a Haney 2.0 who might be ready to resume his career.Comment
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I agree as a whole but teaching an old dog new tricks is one hell of a commitment
He won’t and can’t change his habits , not now at this stage
He will resort to the clinching and jabbing with occasional power combo
I never was big on Ramirez and to me , he seems one dimensional his fighting style
But you do have a good point about Haney trying to settle more on his shots which would help the weight transfer
Also , that is why many trainers drill into your head or try to , to resort back to the jab
The jab does it all
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