Devin Haney turned in the best performance of his career Saturday in his hometown of San Francisco, shutting out overmatched 140-pound champ Regis Prograis to win a major title in a second division.
If there was any doubt about Haney’s place among the best fighters in the world beforehand, there isn’t now.
The question we faced was whether his impressive victory merited an upgrade on Boxing Junkie’s pound-for-pound list (Top 15 plus five Honorable Mentions).
We feel it did.
Haney entered the fight ranked No. 14, one spot behind fellow young star Shakur Stevenson.
We normally wouldn’t bump a fighter up more than one or two notches after a victory over an opponent who wasn’t on the pound-for-pound list going into the fight. However, this case is unusual.
Consider three things:
- One, Haney didn’t simply defeat Prograis, he embarrassed him. He dropped him and won every round on all three scorecards.
- Two, he moved up in weight and directly into a world championship fight.
- And, three, Prograis was no easy mark. He was a respected, once-beaten, two-time titleholder.
Yes, it was a special night for Haney.
As a result, he moves up to No. 10, which knocks previous No. 10 Errol Spence Jr., No. 11 Vasiliy Lomachenko, No. 12 Artur Beterbiev and Stevenson down one spot each.
Note: Spence and Lomachenko are coming off losses – Spence to Terence Crawford and Lomachenko to Haney – and Stevenson gave a shaky performance in his unanimous decision victory over Edwin De Los Santos.
Beterbiev, 38, can bounce back up the list depending on how he performs against Callum Smith on Jan. 13
Next pound-for-pounder up: Honorable mentions Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez and Sunny Edwards will face off on Saturday in Glendale, Arizona.
Here’s what the list looks like at the moment:
BOXING JUNKIE
POUND-FOR-POUND
- Terence Crawford – No fight scheduled.
- Naoya Inoue – Scheduled to face fellow titleholder Marlon Tapales for the undisputed 122-pound championship on Dec. 26 in Japan.
- Oleksandr Usyk – Scheduled to face fellow titleholder and No. 9 Tyson Fury for the undisputed heavyweight championship on Feb. 17 in Saudi Arabia.
- Dmitry Bivol – Scheduled to defend his 175-pound title against Lyndon Arthur on Dec. 23 in Saudi Arabia.
- Juan Francisco Estrada – No fight scheduled.
- Canelo Alvarez– No fight scheduled.
- Jermell Charlo – No fight scheduled.
- Gervonta Davis – No fight scheduled.
- Tyson Fury – Scheduled to face fellow titleholder and No. 3 Oleksandr Usyk for the undisputed heavyweight championship on Feb. 17 in Saudi Arabia.
- Devin Haney – No fight scheduled.
- Errol Spence Jr. – No fight scheduled.
- Vasiliy Lomachenko – No fight scheduled.
- Artur Beterbiev – Scheduled to defend his 175-pound titles against Callum Smith on Jan. 13 in Quebec City, Canada.
- Shakur Stevenson – No fight scheduled.
- David Benavidez – No fight scheduled.
Honorable mention (alphabetical order): Jermall Charlo (no fight scheduled); Sunny Edwards (scheduled to face Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez in a 112-pound title-unification bout on Dec. 16 in Glendale, Arizona); Roman Gonzalez (no fight scheduled); Kazuto Ioka (scheduled to defend his 115-pound title against Josber Perez on New Year’s Eve in Japan); Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez (scheduled to face Sunny Edwards in a 112-pound title-unification bout on Dec. 16 in Glendale, Arizona).
