We have one more week to find out what will happen between the current undisputed lightweight world champion, Devin Haney, and his mandatory challenger, Shakur Stevenson.
As ProBox TV News reported earlier this week, a deadline was imposed by the WBC for Haney to decide if he was defending his WBC lightweight world title against Stevenson, or if Haney would opt to move up in weight and challenge the WBC junior welterweight world champion, Regis Prograis. If Haney were to do that he would vacate his WBC lightweight title, and a rational mind might suspect that the other titles he holds could also soon become vacant as well.
Today we found out the big decision Haney has on his hands will be prolonged. President of the World Boxing Council, Mauricio Sulaiman, explained via Twitter that they are extending the period until next Thursday, July 27th for Haney to make his decision.
This comes on the heels of Stevenson applying even more pressure on Haney when he requested to be the WBO mandatory challenger as well. As Stevenson has been rather insistent that he wants to fight Haney even stating that Haney is avoiding a fight with him when he quote-tweeted Vasiliy Lomachenko.
“I understand champ, but if he ducks you like he’s ducking me it only makes sense for us to get it in,” tweeted Stevenson to Lomachenko, about Haney prior.
Haney has cryptically alluded to a possible fight between himself and Prograis being next as he stated on Twitter, 'October', in response to Prograis asking his promoter, Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing when he could fight. That said, nothing has been reported, or confirmed as fact. This prompted Prograis to say the following on Twitter.
"Either Devin can stay there and get outboxed by Shakur or come up to fight me and get his teeth knocked out," tweeted Prograis. "Stuck between a rock and a hard place."
We now will wait another week to see how the story unfolds and what is next for not just Haney, but the lightweight division at large, as he holds all the belts and is currently the one who needs to make a decision to move the division forward.
