Boxing Challenge;Haney's the one?

On a wacky Friday night in boxing that featured one fight canceled in one of the more bizarre manners even for a sport that often specializes in the bizarre, there was a star in the ring to allow thoughts of bigger things down the road rather than the absurdity of today.

DAZN and Matchroom presented the dazzling Devin Haney in another spectacular performance.
Haney did some serious damage to the face of Zaur Abdullaev in the fourth round and forced the corner of Abdullaev to halt the fight by not allowing their fighter to come out for the fifth round.
Haney wins one of those ridiculous "titles", but more importantly positions himself for either a future title shot for the unified lightweight title that will be held by Vasyl Lomachenko or the winner of the Richard Commey-Teofimo Lopez fight after their fight next winter/spring.
Haney was impressive with both his speed and power against the overmatched Abdullaev, who took a pounding without falling and was only going to continue to be battered had the bout continued.

Devin Haney continues to impress me and every time Haney fights, he makes me think that he will be the next dominant fighter in boxing.
Haney's done nothing to make me think otherwise and until I see a hiccup, I give him a small edge over Teofimo Lopez as the best prospect at 135 pounds under (I give that restriction to exclude the devastating Vergil Ortiz at welterweight).
Many compare Haney to Floyd Mayweather, but there is another fighter that he reminds me of as well.
Haney reminds me of prime Meldrick Taylor with power that can get an opponent out and speed that is dazzling and to date, Haney gets hit less than Taylor too.
For those of you that don't remember prime Meldrick Taylor, it was Taylor that was two seconds and a bad decision by a referee from handing the great Julio Cesar Chavez his first loss- Taylor was that good.


The problem for Haney might be getting fights after his last two performances and even if Lomachenko wins to unify the four lightweight titles ( he currently holds three), the naturally larger Haney just might be the impetus for Lomachenko to drop back to 130 pounds and not give away the edge in size to Haney.
Haney could be that good and should Lomachenko decide to make the return to junior lightweight, Haney's biggest problem could be finding a way to be involved with picking up a vacant title or two.

The co-feature saw heavyweight Michael Hunter add another minor title with a unanimous decision over Sergey Kuzmin.
Kuzmin basically plodded around the ring as Hunter controlled the distance and didn't allow Kuzmin to do anything on the inside and use his strength.
Hunter dropped Kuzmin in round five and although Kuzmin was not seriously dazed, he didn't seem overly interested in taking counterpunches to get anything done on the inside.
I scored Hunter a 118-109 winner (10-2 in rounds with a knockdown)
Hunter has an excellent chance of being a possible title challenger, should Anthony Joshua regain his three championships from Andy Ruiz with both fighters promotional connections being with Matchroom.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica scored three points (Two for Haney, One for Hunter) to my one for Haney's win.
Ramon cut into the overall margin to 220-191.