{"id":272691,"date":"2025-11-20T02:01:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T02:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/272691\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T02:01:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T02:01:09","slug":"devin-haney-agreed-to-jaron-ennis-fight-but-152-pound-catchweight-was-deal-breaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/272691\/","title":{"rendered":"Devin Haney agreed to Jaron Ennis fight but 152-pound catchweight was deal-breaker"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a time soon after he beat Jose Ramirez<\/a> when Devin Haney thought he would fight Jaron Ennis next.
The former undisputed lightweight champion assumed when he agreed to face Ennis<\/a> that their fight would be contested at the welterweight limit of 147 pounds. Haney<\/a> only pivoted toward boxing Brian Norman Jr. after Eddie Hearn, Ennis\u2019 promoter and Haney\u2019s former promoter, requested that Haney move all the way up to a catch weight of 152 pounds for that difficult fight.
Haney informed The Ring<\/a> that he will eventually compete at the junior middleweight maximum of 154 pounds. That time hasn\u2019t arrived, however, because he has yet to even box as a full-fledged welterweight.<\/p>\n

The contracted catch weight for the Oakland native\u2019s 12-round unanimous points win against Ramirez was 144 pounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were talking about doing the Boots fight at 147,\u201d Haney told The Ring. \u201cI agreed to do it and then they came back with a catch weight of 152, when he was a champion at 147. That was the deal-breaker. One-forty-seven was the weight he was the champion at, and that\u2019s what I was looking to do the fight at.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ennis (35-0, 31 KOs, 1 NC) relinquished his Ring, IBF and WBA welterweight titles in June because he didn\u2019t think it was safe to keep depleting himself by dropping down to 147 pounds. He knocked out overmatched Uisma Lima (14-2, 10 KOs) in the first round<\/a> of his 154-pound debut October 11 at Xfinity Mobile Arena in Ennis\u2019 hometown of Philadelphia.
Haney, of Henderson, Nevada, would still like to challenge himself versus Ennis after what he expects to be a successful welterweight run. He can become champion in a third division by beating Norman for his WBO belt in the co-feature of \u201cThe Ring IV: Night of the Champions\u201d card<\/a> at ANB Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, my main focus is Brian Norman,\u201d Haney said. \u201cI\u2019m focused on him and we\u2019ll get to all the other fights after. But I wanna become champion at 147.\u201d<\/p>\n

As appreciative as he is for this opportunity, Haney, 27, took a circuitous route to this title shot.<\/p>\n

The former WBC 140-pound champ expected to face rival Ryan Garcia in a grudge rematch this fall. They agreed to fight next, but Rolando \u201cRolly\u201d Romero ruined Haney\u2019s chance at redemption when he upset Garcia by unanimous decision<\/a> in the main event of The Ring\u2019s outdoor card May 2 at Times Square in New York.
Haney then thought he secured another deal for a long-discussed showdown with Teofimo Lopez<\/a>. That fight fell apart once Lopez made disparaging remarks on social media about Turki Alalshikh, chairman of Saudi Arabia\u2019s General Entertainment Authority and owner of The Ring.<\/p>\n

Norman (28-0, 22 KOs, 1 NC), of Conyers, Georgia, happily accepted the biggest fight of his career after Haney (32-0, 15 KOs, 1 NC) was left to seek yet another opponent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first fight that we wanted to do was the Ryan Garcia fight,\u201d Haney said. \u201cAnd then it was the Teo fight. Once that fell out, we explored the Boots [Ennis] fight for a little bit. And the best guy was Brian Norman. That\u2019s the fight that we made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Norman-Haney will be the third of four fights DAZN<\/a> Pay-Per-View will offer for $59.99 in the United States and \u00a324.99 in the UK.<\/p>\n

The Ring ranks Norman No. 1 among its top 10 welterweight contenders for an unclaimed championship. In accordance with its ranking guidelines, Haney isn\u2019t in The Ring\u2019s top 10 at welterweight or junior welterweight.<\/p>\n

The Ring IV: Night of the Champions takes place on Saturday, November 22 and will stream live on DAZN PPV<\/a> from 3pm ET\/8pm GMT.
Keith Idec is a senior writer and columnist for The Ring. He can be reached on X @idecboxing<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a time soon after he beat Jose Ramirez when Devin Haney thought he would fight Jaron…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,6842,6836,6841,6840,6834,6102,6837,6838,6839,6835,6588,6847,6846,6830,6828,6829,6844,6831,6827,6848,6843,101,6845,6826,6833,56,54,55,6832],"class_list":["post-272691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-community","tag-boxing-fights","tag-boxing-history","tag-boxing-interviews","tag-boxing-magazine","tag-boxing-news","tag-boxing-photos","tag-boxing-rankings","tag-boxing-schedule","tag-boxing-videos","tag-boxing-results","tag-disqualification","tag-draw","tag-fight","tag-fighter","tag-fighter-news","tag-knockout","tag-latest-boxing-matches","tag-ring","tag-ring-magazine","tag-split-decision","tag-sports","tag-technical-knockout","tag-the-ring","tag-top-fighters","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}