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The May 20 bout between Devin “The Dream” Haney Jr. and Vasyl Lomachenko could have changed the landscape of boxing for years.
The world of boxing can be a complicated sport because there are so many competitors in their space, but when one unifies a prospective weight class belt, there’s no denying you are the best.
Boxing has four federations which boxers can fight under and venture out to battle for their belts. Between the four federations, the WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO, either Devin Haney Jr. or Vasyl Lomachenko have held different belts in the lightweight division and were considered “the best.”
With both competitors yearning to show the world they are the hands-down best of the best, Haney Jr. and Lomachenko held a 12-round unification bout for the lightweight belts.
Regardless of the outcome or whether you believe the wrong man’s hand was raised in victory, their fight has been immediately impactful and influential.
Since their fight, another unification bout in the welterweight division between top pound-for-pound boxers in Errol Spence Jr and Terence Crawford has been set for July 29 with the same goal as the fight before.
Could Haney Jr. and Lomachenko may have unified other high-profile boxers
Unification bouts are nothing new, but it has been a while since we have seen them so frequently. This is the closest we’ve seen to something like “The 4 Kings of Boxing” in the early 1970s and late 80s.
Boxing fans, new and old, should be ecstatic with excitement for the future of boxing if this continues. What other unification bouts could be in the future?
One fight that the boxing world could push for is the unification of the heavyweight division with Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk.
After years of clamoring for highly competitive and top-ranked matches, boxers are finally proving themselves as the best by fighting and beating the best.