In order to beat Brian Norman Jr, I believed Devin Haney was going to need to recreate his career best performance against then top jr. welterweight Regis Prograis to even have a chance at beating the surging young champion and brutal power puncher. And that’s exactly what he did. 

After a feel out first, Haney (33-0, 1 NC, 15 ko) dropped Norman hard in the second, disciplining him in a surprising display of power at a new weight class, and spent the remainder of the fight behind a power jab and check hook for a dominant unanimous decision by scores of 114-113, 117-110 and 116-111. ITRBoxing scored the fight 117-110 for Haney.

Norman (28-1, 1 NC, 24 ko), fresh off a knockout of the year candidate against Jin Sasaki, had his moments and won a few rounds down the stretch as he was able to finally close distance on Haney, but for all of his efforts to make it a physical fight, he had very little success landing cleanly and was largely smothered. 

Haney has long been a master of range, but questions remained after a bad decision loss (turned no contest) against Ryan Garcia and a tentative decision win against Jose Ramirez in his next fight a year later in New York. His ability to take a punch seemed up in the air as well as his confidence and mentality, and whether those two things were still there to a level that could carry him to victory against the best welterweight in the world. But Haney reminded me and the rest of the boxing world that experience matters, and that the fighter who schooled George Kambosos twice in Australia, who went tit for tat with the legendary Vasiliy Lomachenko and who gave Regis Prograis a boxing lesson not even two years ago still exists.

Haney looked like a new fighter at 147, one of a slew of recent examples of long depleted fighters moving up to a more natural weight and having standout performances including Mikayla Mayer, Tiger Johnson and Jaron “Boots” Ennis. This version of Haney makes the recently resurgent welterweight division that much more interesting.