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George Kambosos Jr.’s face was marked up following his loss to Devin Haney, but the former IBF/WBA/WBO lightweight champion claimed he was not hurt at any point during their 12-round, 135-pound title fight Sunday.
Kambosos is sure he hurt Haney on multiple occasions, though, both to his body and head. That’s why, according to Kambosos, Haney held him so often during a mostly unremarkable bout Haney won by unanimous decision at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne.
“I was sharp [at] points,” Kambosos said. “I landed some very good shots. I hurt him a few times. I feel like every time I landed clean, he was hurt. So, he just fought his game off that jab. He just boxed off that jab and did his holding. He did hold a lot. He did get low. Every time I tried to exchange, he’d hold and dropped into that hip. So, it is what it is.”
Jim Kambosos, George’s father, co-manager and trainer, also mentioned Haney’s holding during their post-fight press conference. He expressed surprise that referee Hector Afu didn’t at least warn Haney for holding his son so often.
“There’s no excuses at all, but the referee basically, you know, with the holding and stuff like that, you know, usually, you know, you get warned and maybe a point taken off,” Jim Kambosos said. “But when the other fighter is, you know, his momentum’s always stopped, you know, that there means that George gotta reset. But at that point, Devin’s resetting with that jab.”
Haney’s jab was his most effective weapon while combating Kambosos’ aggression. The undisputed lightweight champion landed more than twice as many jabs as Kambosos, according to CompuBox’s unofficial count (78-of-333 to 32-of-215).
CompuBox counted one more power punch for Haney as well. Overall, he out-landed Kambosos by 47 punches (147-of-588 to 100-of-417).
Judges Zoltan Enyedi, Pawel Kardyni and Benoit Roussel all favored Haney by comfortable margins. Poland’s Kardyni scored 10 rounds for Haney, 118-110, whereas Hungary’s Enyedi and Canada’s Roussel scored eight rounds apiece for the Oakland native, 116-112.
Sydney’s Kambosos (20-1, 10 KOs) is contractually guaranteed a shot at redemption against Haney (28-0, 15 KOs), who resides in Henderson, Nevada. He said he expects their immediate 12-round rematch to take place sometime in November, perhaps in Melbourne because a crowd of 41,129 attended their first fight.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.