Bill Haney makes an appearance with Ring Magazine to share his perspective on a much-discussed fight between his son, Devin Haney, and Shakur Stevenson. During the segment Bill would explain how Shakur failed to follow through with making the fight and continued to request concessions from their team even after they were willing to drop below the welterweight limit to make the fight happen. Here are some excerpts of what he had to say below.
Bill Haney on the Shakur vs Devin fight falling apart
“The WBO world championship being on the line and an opportunity for Shakur Stevenson — not once, but twice he’s had an opportunity at 135 and again at 147 and he didn’t step up. I mean, after months and months of back-and-forth…We did everything that we could to try to make this fight happen…Unfortunately we had to part ways with that part of the negotiation and everybody thought I was picking on Keyshawn and I was picking on Shakur, but it was a problem started by J. Prince who said he had two double barrels pointed at me and now I don’t know if they were blanks or were they fakes. I don’t know.
“We’d like to say that we have showed that Deebo will pull up anywhere, anytime on the fighters that have the X on their back. They disregarded out list, or at least the fight have went the other direction. A new list should be coming out soon, and it’s going to have some guys that are not just domestic, but international. One guy in particular in Liam Paro for a unification.”
On the talks breaking down over a catchweight
“All the champions and pundits agree that it should happen at 147 lbs. We made the move and made the concession to go down to 145 lbs to make the fight happen with no concession being given. On the total opposite, they asked for a rehydration clause and extended negotiations far beyond what they should have been.
“When we made the concession for ‘45 we didn’t get what we thought or considered that it would be an appropriate concession, so talks ended up being strained once again. But I stay consistent in making that we use no negotiating power to not make the fight happen. We made concessions because that’s what the the people want see and we ain’t going nowhere. Devin is the 147 lb king.”