The Ariel Helwani Show - Devin Haney

Episode Date: May 5, 2022

One of boxing’s rising stars joins the show a few weeks ahead of his June 4 showdown with George Kambosos Jr. After telling Ariel how he discovered boxing, Haney discusses his relationships with Floyd Mayweather Jr., Terence Crawford, and Eddie Hearn, why he had to leave Matchroom to sign with Top Rank, why he converted to Islam in 2021 (26:30), how he plans to avoid the pitfalls of fame (29:42), and much more.You can follow Devin on Twitter and Instagram @RealDevinHaney.Devin Haney is a 23-year-old American professional boxer who boasts a pristine 27-0 record. He is currently the WBC world champion and is set to face George Kambosos Jr. for the undisputed lightweight title in Melbourne, Australia, on June 4.For more episodes of The Ariel Helwani Show, please follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or on Ariel's YouTube channel.Theme music: "Frantic" by The Lovely Feathers

Hey everyone, hope you're doing well. Welcome back to a brand new edition of The Helwani Show. I, of course, am Ariel Helwani. It is Thursday, May 5th, 2022. Happy Cinco de Mayo, if you're celebrating, and thanks for checking out the show. Thank you very much to the Lovely Feathers for their great track, which is our theme song. It's called Frantic. I love those guys. And as you know, I love the sport of boxing. I've been on this boxing kick as of late, of course, coming off the Katie Taylor-Manis-Rano fight. But I've been a fan of boxing long before I even knew what MMA was. Of course, I went down the MMA path for many years and have devoted my professional life to

covering MMA. But boxing is a lot of fun. And now that I'm independent Helwani, it's been fun rubbing elbows with the sport of boxing, if you will. And I say all that because today's guest is one of the biggest stars, rising stars, young studs, no longer a prospect. He is established, but he is so very young. He is 23 years young, to be exact. And he has a massive fight on June 4th here in the United States, June 5th in Australia. He is 27-0. He's the WBC lightweight champion, and he is fighting for the undisputed lightweight titles in June, 4th here in America, 5th in Australia against George Kambosis Jr. You may be familiar with George Kambosis. He's the man who shocked the world late last year when he defeated

Teofimo Lopez. He is from Australia. He is a very exciting and interesting personality as well, and they are going to clash in a month's time at Marvel Stadium, which you may recall was the place that Israel Adesanya beat Robert Whitaker, also the place where Holly Holm beat Ronda Rousey. It's in Melbourne, Australia, and it's a fantastic venue. They're expecting 40,000 to 50,000 people over there. It's going to air on ESPN here in the United States, linear ESPN. So in prime time, it's going to be a really big deal. And so I had an opportunity to talk to Devin Haney, who is very popular in the sport of boxing about his rise, working with his father, Bill Haney, who has been by his side since the beginning of his career, how he got into boxing, his social media presence, his jewelry,

his relationship with Floyd Mayweather. And also, speaking of the business of boxing, he had to leave Eddie Hearn and Matchroom Boxing to go take this fight and sign with Top Rank and Lou DiBella. It's a very interesting scenario that is playing out and sign a two-fight deal with them. It's all fascinating stuff to me. So I hope you enjoy this. It's a little more like the interviews that you see from me in other places. It's fight-related, but it's not MMA-related. It's boxing-related. And this is a name that you should know if you're somewhat interested in the sport of boxing or if you just want to learn about one of the young up and coming stars who's going to be around for a long time. 27 and 0 and he's just 23. It's pretty remarkable stuff. His name is Devin the Dream

Haney. He has a massive fight, but first he stops by on this program. Enjoy my conversation with Devin Haney. A lot to talk to you about. 135 right now is on fire. In fact, you were in Vegas for the Shakur-Stevenson fight this past weekend. What did you think of his performance? I thought Shakur went in there and he put on a great performance, a master boxing class. He went in there and he did what I thought he would do and he got the victory. So yeah, props to him. So I've said a few times, 135, I think is the best weight class, not only in boxing, but in combat sports, but in boxing in particular, men and women, because at MSG, I was there,

Katie Taylor, Amanda Serrano were fighting at 135 as well. Do you agree? I feel like you will agree with this. Do you agree that right now 135 is the best weight in boxing? Yeah, I definitely agree. And that's why I felt like after this fight, when I become undisputed, that I got to be put on the pound for pound list. Because if it's one champion and it's the most exciting, most toughest division in boxing, then if it's one man on top, he has to be on the pound for pound list. I agree.

Yeah. You think people would put you off the pound for pound list even if you win on June 5th? I hope not. I hope not. But I doubt it. I feel like the boxing world knows, the true fans know that, you know, you got to be on the pound for pound list if you come out on top of the lightweight division. Because a few months ago, they were saying that it was the toughest division, that it was all young studs there.

When you made your debut, your pro debut in 2015, did you think just a few short years later, you're 23, that you'd be in this spot, you know, on the verge of undisputed gold, on the verge of pound for pound list? Or is this kind of happening a little quicker than you and your father, Bill, had imagined early on? Yeah, it's definitely happened a little faster than what I thought. I knew that I would be here one day, but I didn't think it would become this fast you know i'm only 23 years old and um i will be the the youngest undisputed champion of all time and uh the first uh lightweight undisputed champion in the four belt era the last person was pernell whittaker and i was in the three belt era so yeah i never thought it would happen this fast but i'm so thankful for it i thank god for it every day all the attention that you get all the the media all the stuff like uh at 23 does it ever get overwhelming do you ever feel like your head is spinning no no um because i know how i know how

hard i work to get here this has been a long time coming um and honestly i don't think that i get my just do i think that uh that um i haven think that I haven't showed everything that I'm made of. And when the world gets more chances to see my skill set, then I'll even be getting more attention. Why do you feel like you don't get your just due? What about the way people talk about you, cover you, makes you feel like you you are being slighted i just feel like i'm the best fighter in the world and uh the boxing peers don't say the boxing world they they've been trying to uh you know keep silent for me about me as long as they can that i feel like i'm a much bigger fighter i'm a superstar and uh only time will tell you started boxing correct me if i'm wrong, when you were eight?

Yeah, like seven, eight, between those two. And why did you get into it early on? I was having problems in school. I was always fighting. I always loved to fight since I was a little kid. And one day my dad took me to the gym. He was like, you want to fight? I'm going to take you to the gym and you're going to get beat up.

Every time you keep fighting, I'm going to keep bringing you back to the gym. And that one time he took me to the gym, I stayed, and it kept me out of trouble, and here I am. So even at 7'8", you're getting into fights. Usually you hear kids as teenagers are getting into fights. You're getting into fights at 7'8"? Yeah. You know, I come from the Bay Area where it's not the nicest. So, yeah, it was kids. It was kids I liked to fight there, too, though, around my age. Really? I come from the Bay Area where it's not the nicest.

It was kids I liked to fight there too though around my age. Really? Were you fighting any of the older kids too? Yeah. I didn't pick and choose my battles like now. I was taking on all comers. When you start to dabble with boxing, at what point does the dream start to formulate in your brain that you can actually do this for a living, that you're really, really good at this? I would say around 13, 14 is when I just knew that this is something that I'm going to be successful at. It's when I just started to get super serious and just fight all the way down is when like 13, 14. So your dad has been by your side from the get-go.

And sometimes I feel like that could be a blessing and a curse, but it seems like you have a very, very good relationship and a loyal relationship with your dad. But he is not, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, overbearing in the sense that he is comfortable with you training with other people. He is not going to get in the way and steal the limelight from you and say, it's only my way or the highway. Can you talk about your relationship with your dad

and what makes him so different than maybe other father-son combos that we've seen in boxing? Yeah, I'm thankful that I got like a new millennial dad that like just make adjustments. He knows like, you know, my celebrity, he knows the person that I am. So he just adjusting as we get bigger

um as i make more money obviously um so he's he's a good person to have in my corner because he he's not overbearing like you said if it's something that like i need to learn from another coach or something like that or you know i may not be like getting it from him he's like he brings somebody else in and maybe they could tell me in a different way a better way that he that he could is it hard sometimes to separate you know like the coach manager or trainer manager slash father it all does it all blend together you know when you're having dinner so i'm assuming you're always talking about your career boxing this and that is that tough at times yeah um i don't know it's really just it's really just my lifestyle so like i'll never like dig too deep into it because boxing is really my life so

um if we talk about it when we talk about it because that dinner if it's here if it's there i don't really like you know take it personal nothing like that because it's just something that we always talk about what about the decision early on to not sign with, you know, like one of the traditional promoters and Al Heyman, something like that. You guys decided not to do that. You wanted to do it your own way. Were you ever tempted to do that? Because that's a blueprint that a lot of other people have followed and you didn't. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely was tempted on the way because, you know, a lot of money was being thrown at me at a young age to sign. And obviously when you, when you don't have any money, like you know, a lot of money was being thrown at me at a young age to sign. And obviously when you don't have any money, like you like, man, on those days when you're broke,

you're like, man, I just want to sign. I want to get some money. I want to see other people, other guys that you came up with signing and they having more money than you at that time. Yeah. So it was definitely hard in the beginning, but I seen the bigger picture. My dad kept it in me. One day it's going to all pay off. And it did because when I signed, I signed for a lot. And the guys that was making more than me at a young age, they can't even come close to me now. Do you feel like it has paid off already or it's in the process of paying off now do you feel like it has paid off already or it's in the process of paying off like you feel like no no no i definitely feel like it's paid off already which energy is getting

even better and better but yeah it's definitely paid off uh one thing that i find interesting about the early portion of your career you fought a lot of times in tijuana uh why did you guys do that and can you describe what those scenes were like like what was the atmosphere like for those early fights when you're a young stud coming up 1 and 0 2 and 0 3 you know all these fights are happening in mexico yeah uh i um i went to tijuana because i turned pro at the age of 17 and i was trying to get my my boxing license in in vegas or no in california first and they said that they denied me they said that um to to get some experience and um to get some more experience in in mexico i had already fought in mexico but i was young so they were like keep fighting in mexico and um and get more experience and then you can come to the to you to the us and fight so uh that's how that started but i always wanted to

to turn pro at a young age i was actually going to turn pro at 16 but i was like but we decided to just wait a little bit longer so at 17 i turned pro and you were fighting like once a week once a month all that and can you just describe like what are those scenes like you know do you feel like you're in hostile territory you're a young kid i mean you're not even you're 17 years old fighting these guys over there. What is that like? Yeah, I was fighting in bars, like bars, fucking like pool, like pool halls and stuff like that. And yeah, it was like hostile.

Like it would be like maybe like 500 people, a thousand thousand people but the whole place would be against you like it would be all like a bunch of uh hispanics and they would just be like cheering fooling me fooling me whenever i came out if i put a punch even got close to me they would go crazy so um it was it was actually like a good experience because when i came back to the us to fight it was all my family my my friends, my fans. So it was like it was a different atmosphere. But I feel like it prepared me for like the moment that I'm about to have. I'm fighting in Melbourne, Australia against George Kambosis.

And it's going to be 50,000 people. And a lot of them are going to be cheering for him. But I just feel like it's no difference uh whether you know it's 500 people cheering against you or 50 000 people cheering against you it's it's they're still going to be doing the same thing whether a punch gets close or uh they're going to be bullying you so it uh it's it's a little bit similar to me um one last thing on all that of course we'll get to the combostas fight but uh did you ever feel unsafe like you're you're beating local guys there in these kind of sketchy areas did you ever feel unsafe no i never felt unsafe uh because they were just like after the fight they were all like like love me and want

to take pictures but all right uh but but before the fight they they would just they were they were just like boxing fans it wasn't like nothing crazy what point, which fight was it that you felt like you are on the verge of something? What was the turning point in your career, in your mind? I fought a guy named Mason Menard when I was 19. I fought him on show box. I want to say he was like 32 and 2. He had like crazy knockouts. The boxing world was saying that I wasn't ready, that I was too young. I was this, I was that. He was going to knockouts and like the box of her was saying that I wasn't ready I was too young I was this I was that he's gonna knock me out and I beat him I

stopped him in my ninth round or something like that and that's not new like yeah I'm on the some I'm almost right where I want to be that's when I became like a contender it ranked me in like top 15 or something like that and yeah yeah and that wasn't that long ago. That was in May of 2018. So here we are exactly four years later and you're about to do big things. How would you describe your relationship with Floyd Mayweather? Yeah.

Floyd has been a mentor to me for a while now. Since a little kid, I've been in his gym. Um, I've always, you know, been there to, to see his journey, his, his journey and, uh, to, to, you know, like take little things that he's, uh, that I liked that he did through his training, through his boxing, through his lifestyle and, uh, add to mine. So he's been a mentor. He's always somebody that I could call up and ask certain things to, and, uh, he, he gives his, his, uh gives his experience. At any point, did you consider being promoted by him? Yeah, Floyd has, we talked numerous occasions about, you know,

him being, me being promoted by him. But we just never could get nothing in writing and done. But I thank him for all the knowledge that he's given me up to this point. And it's a lot of respect. So one thing that I find really interesting about the sport of boxing and the business of boxing is how you're able to kind of jump around and create your own path and make the most amount of money for yourself. Not that long ago, you were being promoted by Eddie Hearn in Matchroom Boxing.

What was your relationship like with Eddie? Me and Eddie, we had a great relationship. I was actually, you know, sad to have to leave and go work with another promoter. Eddie was good to me. And I forever thank him for everything that he's done for me up to this point. Now, just curious, for those that don't know, because literally your last fight was with Eddie and Mattroom, why couldn't you have gotten this fight with George

while still under his umbrella? It's just the way that the deal was set up, it had to be on ESPN and I had to go sign with top rank and yeah.

And DiBella. Yes, and Lou DiBella. And that was just pretty much how it was set up. It was either basically do that or, you know, the fight couldn't happen. I had to do what was best for me and my career. But I also thank, you know, Todd Frank and Lou DiBella and Peter Connors as well because I wanted to fight

more than anything and we got it done. Did Eddie, you know, raise a stink about this? Was he upset about it? How did he react when you had to leave him because he's done some great work

in building you up? Yeah, I mean, Eddie definitely wasn't happy about it, which we you up yeah i mean eddie definitely wasn't happy about it uh which we didn't expect him to be i wasn't happy about it um i tried my best to do everything to to stay loyal to him and stay with him but um i had to do what was best for me and my career so you signed a two-fight deal with top rank and de bella uh would it be fair to say if you can answer or not that once that's done you'd like to go back to match room uh we don't know what the future holds um honestly top rank has has been good to me so far um everything has been great um i like working

with with top rank and and lude bella so um we don't know what the future holds you know we want to get past these two fights and then and then we see what's next how did you feel when it was proposed to you about this fight that it would have to happen in australia i know you talked about fighting an enemy territory in the past but you know 50 000 people it's a long flight from vegas how did you feel about that yeah um i knew that it was gonna have to be in australia from from the jump so um and really i wasn't shaking up about it I knew that it was if it was going to happen it was going to happen in Australia so it wasn't a big deal for me uh honestly I don't think that it really has said anything that it's going to

happen in Australia it's really just like another fight for me uh have you gotten confirmation that there will be no Australian judges yeah yeah, yeah, it's definitely confirmation. That was before the fight was even set, that it would be no Australian judges. It's all neutral judges, and yeah. You had a press conference with him recently. You weren't in the same country as him. You were, I think, in L.A., and he was in Australia. But there seems to be some bad blood between you guys. How would you describe your feelings towards George?

I wouldn't say it's no bad blood. He's just, he's stuck in his ego right now. Right now he's on his high horse and he's coming off the victory against T.O. And he feels like he's the man and nobody can tell him different. And that's just, you know,

for me to show him June 4th, that he's not, he's not the guy that he really thinks he is or that the people around him think he is. And that's what I do. He kept calling you kid. Yeah, he was calling me kid and boy. And that's what I really did like because, you know, it's just some stuff that's off limits, you know what I'm saying? And if you know, then you know you understand um and

i know that he knows that it's off limits to say those kind of things but you know it is what it is um and so do you feel at this point like he is overhyped did you not like what did you think of his performance against teo i thought he put on a great performance he went in there and he beat him. I thought he beat him clear. I thought it was a clear victory. It was a good fight, though.

It was an exciting fight. But no, he put on a great performance. But that was against Tio. I'm a different fighter. I said time and time again that I will beat Tio. So we'll see.

We'll see who comes out on the top and uh the difference between me and different from tia uh your your father in that press conference said that you guys signed up for this twice um when he was kind of saying that you didn't want this and all this stuff when was the first time no uh it's a two fight deal right oh so what do you say okay got it because it'll be an immediate rematch. Yeah. Yeah. So when I,

when I beat him the first time we got to fight again and in Australia. So, um, you can never say that I didn't want it because I didn't sign up. I didn't say, Hey, you got to come here and fight me in the U S I beat you once. I said,

you know what? I'm coming back. Now, why is that? Why, why was that part of the deal? Why do you have to do the rematch? If you win,

why do you have to go back to Australia? Yeah, because he's a diva, and that's what he insisted for the fight to get made. But it's fine. I just know that the type of fighter that I am, the type of person I am, if I could beat you once, I know I can beat you twice. So it's fine. He said that the original plan was Lomachenko, but because of the situation in Ukraine, he had to move on to you. But I saw his tweet to Lomachenko and said, let me get rid of this guy and then the real champions will fight. What did you make of that? Yeah, the real champions will be me and Loma.

It won't be him. He won't be the guy. And he'll see. I'll show him that I'm on a different level than this guy. He can say what he wants to say. He does a lot of talking. But it's different. It's different. And the world will see.

He will see on June 4th. Do you like when you fight someone who kind of tries to poke you and get under your skin? Does that raise your motivation? Honestly, it makes no difference. Honestly, it's the same thing. I'm going to go in there and do what I'm going to do regardless whether he talks, whether he doesn't. It doesn't motivate me or it doesn't not motivate me.

It is what it is. I'm going to go in there and do my job like a true professional whether he talks or whether he doesn't so the fight is uh almost essentially a month away how how much in advance will you go to Australia so that your body is you know completely acclimatized to the time zone yeah I'm gonna be there three weeks before um to adjust to the timing the climate you know because when it's summer here, it's winter, it's winter there, you know, I'm in Vegas, so it's hot. So, um, you know, we're just going to get adjusted to the air and, and, and all that. And, uh, three weeks before, uh, would it be

fair to say this is the biggest purse of your career? Um, yeah, I would say it's it's the the biggest purse but i'm definitely it's not it's not nothing that's it's not much bigger than really my last purse was yeah it's not much bigger but i i believed in myself my skills my talent um and i uh i said you know what whatever whatever the money is forget the money i want to win more than i want the money so i'm not gonna hold this fight up to keep negotiating about money or you know nothing like that i really want uh to win more than anything i want my name to be in history books forever so uh if if i gotta take the pay cut, because I could have made more money. I would have made more money if I would have stayed with Matchroom and Eddie Hearn. But that's why I said that. That's why I've been saying that I took a pay cut. But it is what it is.

Wow. Okay. So do you feel as though, basically, do you feel like you're being disrespected by the amount of money that they offered you and you just had to take it for the opportunity? Or are you at peace with it? Like, are you annoyed about this or are you okay with it? No, no, I'm at peace with it because I want to win more than I want the money. I don't care about the money. I made a lot of money already. More money than a lot of people even know.

So it is what it is. Have you had a chance to meet Bob Arum? Spend time with him? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I met Bob. What's he like? We flew on a jet from Vegas to LA. He's a cool guy.

It's crazy to think that he's 90 years old. But he's a legend. He's still doing it at 90 years old. And I asked him, I said, why? Why do you still do this? You're 90 years old. You're rich. You don't even need to.

He said, he said, just because he genuinely loves it. So you got to respect a guy like that. 90 years old, still going to work every day. Incredible. I mean, a real legend of the sport, all the people that he has promoted over the years. Ali, I mean, the list goes on and on. So I know that's a huge honor for you.

And again, you know, getting a chance to fight on ESPN and not on pay-per-view, this is going to be in prime time here in the United States, Saturday night, June 4th on ESPN. That's a pretty big freaking deal. Like well over a million people are going to be watching this, I would imagine. Yeah, this is a huge deal.

This fight is going to be my most watched fight by far. I've been fighting on DAZN, which obviously we know that the eyeballs is not like ESPN primetime. I'm finally going to get my shot in front of the world for the pro to see. It couldn't have happened at a better time.

I saw recently on social media you've been training and spending some time with Terrence Crawford. What have you been learning from him? What about him has really made an impression on you? Terrence has been showing me little tricks, you know, that he does in the ring and the little, little things that's going to propel my, my, my skillset. Yeah. Even more.

George was at your last fight against Linares and you know, he was kind of like sitting there. He was like, Hey, impress me, not impress me. And you did the post fight interview with the zone. And he's,

you know, a part of the thing. Did you like how that was all set up in terms of like you, you, it was almost set up like Devin has to do something to impress this guy so that you can win the sweepstakes. And I was trying to read your body language and I wasn't sure if you were down with all of that.

Yeah. I didn't like that because it's like why do i need to impress you at the end of the day at the end of the day it's it's champion versus champion and for all the belts it does i don't need to impress you i could i can go in there and look look terrible as long as i win uh then you should then you should want to make the fight happen it isn't i need to put on a good performance or whatever the type of performance up to your standards. What does it matter? Um, I'm very interested.

I hope you don't mind me asking you about this in religion. Uh, and I know, like I see in your interviews, you always say Alhamdulillah and things like that. Uh, so you, are you Muslim?

Yes. Yes. When did that happen? When did you become Muslim? Uh, let to say I converted about maybe like a year and a half ago. Right. Yeah, I think

at some point in 2021. Why did you do that? Because, well, I've been studying like Muslim, like the religion for about like, since I was about 14 my dad took me to the monastery like 14 and uh so i've been like understanding it for a while now and uh it was just like

kind of like a a group effort with with me and and my friends and we just we were studying it for a while and that's when we just took our shahada and uh yeah uh and your father is as well right my father yeah my father was uh took a shahada and stuff like that before me wow uh i saw on social media someone was giving you crap about eating during ramadan did that annoy you uh yeah it did kind of annoy me. I'm not going to lie because they just don't understand. Only Allah can judge. And Allah understands that it's for my job. It's for me to feed my family and provide for my family. That's why.

There's no way that I could get past right now because I'm training two, three times a day. I don't have time to train just at nighttime because I'm training two to three times a day. I don't have time to train just at nighttime because I'm training two to three times a day. My coaches, I train at facilities and that's open during the daytime. So I would be too dehydrated to not drink and to fast all during the day. But these things that you can make up or you can get an exempt for your job. That's what I have to do for me to feed my family. So when people come at you like that on social media and you respond to them, sometimes some might say, just don't respond, right?

You're drawing more to it. Like I saw it, right? Yeah. It pissed me off. That's why I responded. And I hate that I responded to it, but it pissed me off honestly that's why that's why i responded to it right but of course yeah it's better to not respond to them because you know when it comes and another one comes and another one comes or it's just it gives it too much

attention and even like you you've seen it so it just it gives it too much attention but it is what it is i gotta it it pissed me off now speaking of uh social media i see on your instagram a lot of jewelry man holy smokes what do you think is like the uh the total combined worth of all the jewelry you own it's insane what you're walking i got i got two million in jewelry what two million yeah and uh you think that's okay? Like, is that enough? Or are you trying to go for more?

No, no, no. No, I got enough. I got enough. I got enough jury. Like, I want to, like, buy some more properties and stuff like that. Some investment properties and some trucks to invest in. Some transporting trucks and stuff like that. You know, I got enough jury.

You know the classic story of, you know, the young boxers, they make all the money, they spend all the money. Do you feel like you are on the straight path here where you won't fall into those same traps? And who is responsible for that? Would you say it's your father? Yeah, a lot of people don't know that I've been making monies for a while now

and I made well over 2 million. So, and I didn't buy jewelry until, until now to where I could buy it three, four or five times. So all the jewelry that I got, I could buy much many more times. So, and I, and I just bought it now. Uh, not, I wouldn't say late in my career because I'm still, it's still early, but late into my millions that I bought jewelry. So, yeah.

And it's just different now. I don't want to be like, I want to be a role model for kids to invest and do right by that money. I'm tired of being the, I don't want to be the guy anymore that just, you know, gives kids to be the wrong role model for kids to just go buy jewelry go spend all their money and do things like that i've heard you say that you're kind of like now in the pretty boy phase of your career but then soon comes money mayweather but i've seen you with the money and the jewelry i feel like you're in the money mayweather phase right now like i didn't yeah no no i don't want to be in that phase right now of course i love money but right now it's legacy. And that's where I'm at in my career. I want to be the best boxer, the most skillful fighter in the world. And that's why I'm in a pretty boy phase, because this is my time to really put my boxing skills on display.

At some point when you get older, do you want to be the bad guy like he was? Like, you want to play the heel? That was part of the money with her you know stage of his career um i want to just be me i mean if that comes and that comes it is what it is uh i don't know but i never want to get out of character or try to be somebody that i'm not uh because i just truly believe in my talent my skills and i know that the money will come regardless. George was critical of the way you speak. He says you stutter a lot, and that surprised him. What's your response to that? I'm not here to impress George.

He can say what he wants to say. I could care less if I stutter, if I don't stutter. It is what it is. He's really trying to get under your skin, huh? Yeah, he's trying his best to get me out of character, like he did T.O. T.O. went in there and just ran at him like a madman because he was out of character,

but he can't get in my head. It is what it is. George is nobody for me to impress, and it is what it is. So in your mind, how do you win on june 4th skills paid bills and i'm a more skillful fighter there's nothing that he's does better than me i got more speed i got more power i got more ring iq i'm the bigger fighter um all odds are stacked against him uh in the ring and uh i will show on the june 4th and so if all goes to plan, does the rematch have to happen

by a certain time? No, I don't think so. I'm not sure exactly, but I don't think so. But if you do win, the rematch has to happen, and then let's assume here that you win that. Your first title defense against someone

not named George Kambosis. In your perfect scenario, who would it be against next year? Yeah, I'll fight anybody. I'm not ducking or dodging nobody. I want to fight the top guys. I've been saying this for a while now. Whether it's that 135 or 140, it makes no difference. But I can't say right now.

This is the Super Bowl of the lightweight division. This is the biggest fight for everything. So it's hard for me to look past him and, you know, pick and choose somebody different after. Right now, I'm so focused on him that I can't even look past. And last thing, at some point when you're all sitting there, like, how high do you think you can go up? You're still so young. I saw you with Canelo. He might be a little too big. But, like, what would be the limit in terms of weight that you think you could go up?

I'm like 5'9", so I'd say maybe 154 is the highest. But Canelo, he's 5'9", 5'8", and he's fucking 175. So the way that boxing is setting up, you never know. Well, I want to wish you the best, man. Great to meet you. Congratulations on all your success thus far, and good luck to you on June 4th here in the U.S., June 5th in Australia.

Fantastic fight. You've been killing it lately, and I can't wait for it. Thank you, Aaron. Thank you for the great interview. All right, so there you have it. Lovely young man, going to be a huge star. He's actually the betting favorite going into this fight. If he can win and then run it back and also win again, massive, massive deal for Devin Haney. I hope you enjoyed the interview. I hope you'll check

out his fight. I hope you're enjoying the boxing content as well. I'm enjoying it. And like I said, I hope you are as well. Thank you very much to the Lovely Feathers for their theme song. Thank you to the production team. Thanks to all of you. If you want to watch this interview, go check it out. YouTube.com slash Ariel Helwani is where you can check it out. Please do subscribe over there. We're doing some nice things over there. The numbers are going up. I like that very much. And over here, please do continue to rate, download, subscribe, and comment, review, follow all the things that you do. It means more than you know. It helps out more than you know as well. Thanks to Devin.

Thanks to all of you. I love you all. We'll be back next week for another conversation. Until then, have a great weekend. Thank you for listening. And I'll talk to you soon. Thank you.