And just like that, Devin Haney is a champion again.
The talented 25-year-old made his 140-pound debut in successful style on Saturday night in San Francisco, dethroning incumbent Regis Prograis by a clear if not exactly thrilling unanimous decision at the Chase Center.
Haney had reigned one class down at lightweight through the spring, becoming one of the sport’s few undisputed four-belt claimants before relinquishing the titles due to recurring issues making the 135-pound limit.
He had few if any competitive concerns against Prograis, who’d been making the second defense of his second reign at 140. Haney was faster with hands and feet than his 34-year-old foe and was able to deny the older man’s quest to make it a rough, messy fight.
Instead, it was a prolonged display of the new champ’s athletic abilities, which he’ll use while pursuing elite status in a weight class chock full of interesting options.
The B/R combat team scanned the horizon for the most intriguing possibilities and assembled them into a list of interesting foes for Haney’s next appearance. Click through to see what we came up with and suggest a match or two of your own in the comments.
Teofimo Lopez
If you’re going to take over a weight class, why not chase the guy who literally uses the phrase as both a nickname and a professional philosophy?
And at 140 pounds that means Teofimo Lopez.
The 26-year-old New Yorker labeled himself “The Takeover” on the way to winning three title belts at lightweight, but it seemed his star had fallen after a first-defense loss to George Kambosos Jr. a year later that was followed by a litany of excuses and conspiracy theories.
A five-pound climb and a pair of unimpressive victories set the stage for what most figured would be a career-stalling loss to WBO junior welterweight champ Josh Taylor, but Lopez flipped the script again with a clear victory on June 10 at Madison Square Garden.
That makes him the highest-profile man among the belt-toting men at 140, and renews the back and forth with Haney that began when both were chasing dreams at lightweight, where both men beat Vasily Lomachenko and each fought Kambosos, too.
“Might just come to 140,” Haney tweeted at Lopez a year ago, “and f–k you up.”
Subriel Matias
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Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a new boogeyman at 140 pounds.
His name is Subriel Matias.
He’s a 31-year-old Puerto Rican who joined the belted class 10 months ago and remained there two weeks ago in Las Vegas, where he prompted a corner surrender from previously unbeaten challenger Shohjahon Ergashev in his initial title defense.
The destruction of Ergashev came with methodical brutality, with Matias almost inviting the rugged Uzbek to empty his gas tank before beginning to take the initiative and beating him to the head and body through five rounds until Ergashev refused to continue.
And suddenly, a handful of matches were begging to be made.
Matias immediately lobbed verbal challenges toward the big names in the division after beating Ergashev, but he’d already gone on record with a critique of Haney a few months earlier—one that might just prompt the new boss to return fire.
“I think Devin is good technically,” he told Boxing Scene. “But he doesn’t have heart. He’s a chicken. He runs a lot.”
Stay tuned.
Ryan Garcia
Into every 140-pound champion’s life, a little Ryan Garcia must fall.
The Golden Boy-promoted slugger with the prodigious social media following added a 20th KO and 24th victory to his resume last week in Houston, overcoming some early adversity and ultimately stopping Oscar Duarte in Round 8 of a scheduled 12-round scrap.
It wasn’t his most impressive performance, but it didn’t need to be.
Because when you’re Garcia, you’re never too far away from a big fight.
He’s perpetually on the minds of high-profile fighters from 135 to 147 pounds because of an ability to produce headlines and draw eyeballs. And because he’s already got some history with Haney—there were 3-3 in six bouts as amateurs—it’s only natural to suggest he and the new champ will find their way back to opposite corners, this time with a paycheck in tow.
Garcia, in fact, lauded Haney while predicting his victory over Prograis, clearly indicating that the new champ is on his mind and may soon be on his resume.
“He just knows what he’s doing in there,” Garcia told Fight Hub TV, “I like his game.”
Gervonta Davis
This one was a near-miss at 135 pounds.
But it still makes sense at 140.
Haney is a new champion in the weight class, and Davis, amid several climbs up and down ladders, won a second-tier title belt at 140 with a defeat of Mario Barrios in 2021.
So while Davis is now a champion at 135 pounds and has an agenda of his own, it seems too much of a temptation not to at least consider an old would-be foe once again.
They’ve badgered one another on social media from time to time and jabbed and parried over leaked YouTube footage of a years-old sparring session, and Haney told The Danza Project in July that he was hoping a Davis fight could be made.
Now that he’s got a belt, why not?
“The biggest fight would be me and Tank,” he said. “That’s the biggest fight. Obviously, that would be the one.”
