Boxing: What’s Next in the Lightweight Division?

Among the boxing divisions, the lightweight category is arguably becoming one of the most interesting classes, together with the heavyweight division. Three undefeated champions seems to be about to collide to reunify the title of World Champion.

On October 17th with the victory of Teofimo Lopez against Vasyl Lomachenko, a remarkable series of exciting matches in the lightweight category has commenced. After the extraordinary and unexpected victory of Teofimo Lopez in October, who became WBO, “Super” WBA and IBF world champion, at the beginning of November Gervonta Davis was reconfirmed as regular WBA champion after knocking out Leo Santa Cruz in the sixth round.

After these two excellent performances, this remarkable series of lightweight matches continued last weekend. The reigning WBC champion Devin Haney responded to Teofimo Lopez and Gervonta Davis with a majestic performance against the Cuban Yuriorkis Gamboa. Devin Haney, the new protégé of Floyd Mayweather (as much as Gervonta Davis) did not disappoint the expectations. Also thanks to the training with Floyd Mayweather over the past months, Haney led a tactically perfect match, showing excellent speed and impeccable defense.

Haney dominated the match with the ease and maturity of a solid champion. The American managed the match with an excellent left jab and severely punished every Gamboa’s initiative with precise and quick combinations. The judges unanimously award the victory to the American boxer, the cards read: 118-109, 120-107, 120-107.

An impeccable match on Haney’s part, who is overbearingly candidate for the role of aspiring undisputed champion of the category. Immediately after the match Devin “The Dream” Haney talked about his possible match against Lopez. Specifically Haney said that he will be happy to fight Lopez and the match will make a lot of sense in order to unify the lightweight division.

However, things seem to be much more complicated. Before a hypothetical reunification match of the lightweight titles with Teofimo Lopez, Haney could first face the winner of the challenge between Ryan Garcia and Luke Campbell, which will take place on December 5, 2020. Out of this clash, we will have the mandatory WBC challenger for the belt. As a result, unless Haney receives a special waiver from the WBC association or the match against Lopez is all set within the next 3-4 months, Haney will have to face the winner of the Garcia vs Campbell match first.

In other words, if Haney will not reach an agreement with Lopez by the first part of 2021, he will surely have to fulfill the official defense obligation under WBC rules. And how about Gervonta Davis? Unexpectedly, it may happen that Davis will fight against Teofimo Lopez despite, in this case, we wont have a unified belts match. This could be the only reason why Lopez may consider to wait for Lopez to fulfill his WBC mandatory match and organize a proper event in 2022.

If to the whole picture, we also add George Kambosos and its chance to fight Teofimo Lopez, we truly understand why the lightweight division is on the spot right now.