WBC light welterweight champion Devin Haney's game plan cost him a fight with Ryan Garcia, forcing him to fight last Saturday night in New York.
Boxing analyst Chris Algieri said it was either Haney's ego or that he underestimated Ryan (25-1, 20 KOs) as Haney slugged him out, delivered a leaping left hook and countered with short punches. I think this is the reason for leaving open the possibility that it will happen. Garcia was pitching.
Algieri felt Ryan, who was 3.2 pounds over the limit at last Friday's weigh-in, was stronger in this fight and that helped make the difference.
Ryan looked like a junior middleweight in the ring, and his power, speed and explosiveness were too much for Haney, he says.
Haney's game plan cost him
When asked if Haney's game plan was bad, analyst Chris Algieri told Sean Zittel, “No, it wasn't good.” “There were a lot of left hooks.” [by Haney]. I saw it in the warm-up.
“The rule is to jab with the jabber, don't hook with the hooker. When I saw him throwing hooks, he had been throwing hooks all night and was actually in the third round or I hurt Ryan in the fourth round, but it wasn't a good game plan,” Algieri said.
What Algieri didn't realize was the pressure on Haney to fight in an interesting way. His last PPV fight against Regis Prograis on DAZN didn't do well, with tickets for his fight against Ryan not selling well and fans criticizing him on social media as a lackluster, boring fighter.
With all this in mind, Haney decided to throw punches with Ryan instead of playing it safe like he did against Prograis, Vasily Lomachenko, and George Kambosos. Honey had no choice and the results showed he was not ready to brawl with a power puncher like Ryan.
Devin chose to brawl.
“I said before this game that Ryan's path to victory was to trade Haney,” Algieri said. “He didn't need to be traded to Haney. Haney chose to trade him. I don't know if it was ego or bravado or whether they underestimated Ryan, but they were wrong. It was clear that was the game plan,” Algieri said.
If Haney were boxing the way Ryan fights, he would have a tough fight because he would have been trapped and forced to take long hits to survive. All of Haney's clinch gave Ryan the opportunity to land short punches and that's how he knocked him down in the seventh.
“Haney did some great boxing in the second and third rounds. Ryan always blamed his weight for his performance in tank fights, but now he knows he can trust him. I started to think,” Algieri said.
If you compare the photos of Ryan's appearance from the Tank Davis fight and the Haney fight, he looks like a completely different person. Ryan looked haggard and sickly in the Tank fight, but muscular and strong in the Haney fight.
“He learned from that fight to this one and said, 'Why put on weight and be weak?'” Tonight, he showed great poise, explosiveness and gas tank. He poured it in late in the game,” Algieri said.
