George Kambosos and Devin Haney official for this summer

It was the announcement boxing fans have been waiting for ever since George Kambosos defeated Teofimo Lopez and became the WBO, WBA, IBF and The Ring lightweight champion. New champion George Kambosos will meet fellow WBC lightweight champion Devin Haney on Friday June 5th in Melbourne Australia’s Marvel Arena. The fight will air live on ESPN.

Kamboses has been openly looking for his next contender; it was initially announced he was set to fight former champion Vasily Lomachenko. However Lomachenko decided not to take the fight with everything going on in his home country Ukraine. Haney stepped in to take the fight, which is a fight of monumental proportions.

Both Kambosos and Haney are undefeated. Kambosos (20-0, 10 KOs) is gunning to become the first undisputed lightweight champion in the four-belt era. Standing in his way is Devin Haney (27-0, 15 KOs). The WBC lightweight title holder Haney, will represent a tough test for Kambosos Jr.,coming off breakthrough wins over Jorge Linares and Joseph Diaz Jr. last year. Kambosos has been extremely vocal about his challenger in recent weeks.

“He’s going to drown. Simple as that,” Kambosos Jr. told Fox Sports News this week. He’s going to drown. To come back home, fight in front of 60,000 people... you better believe I will turn up and drown this kid. I’m relentless, ruthless and will destroy this kid. I will damage him where he will never want to fight again, he will never want to go near a boxing ring again. Many of his first 18 fights were in Mexico. It’s like having amateur fights really, not even. I’ve been into the lion’s den and beat the best of the best. I’ve been studying all these guys so I’ve got notepads and know exactly what I need to do to win this fight.”

Haney is only 23 years old, and has a lot to prove in this fight. Most boxing critics know Haney as the “email champion. The nickname took on a life of its own after the fact that he did not exactly earn his WBC lightweight title directly through a fight. Haney was awarded by the WBC as the organization’s outright WBC lightweight titlist in 2019, but only after then unified lightweight titleist Lomachenko decided to drop the WBC belt in favor of another opportunity.

Haney now has the opportunity to claim all the gold and unify the division. This fight brings about some interesting stipulations. The understanding is that if Haney beats Kambosos on June 5, he is obligated to face Kambosos again in Australia later that year, assuming Haney remains at 135. If Haney beats Kambosos two consecutive times, he may then be in line to fight Vasiliy Lomachenko next year on ESPN Pay-Per-View.

Haney was more than comfortable to do this as he claims it’s more about legacy than anything else. It’s about legacy for me,” Haney said. “I’ve made a lot of money already. So, it wasn’t about the money here. Of course, you can always make more money. Of course I want more money. But it was about legacy and I’ve been begging for the big fights for so long now. People thought that I was bluffing and stuff like that. This is truly what I wanted. I wanted to be the king of the lightweight division. That’s why when they came up with all these demands, I said, 'Yup, yup, yup. What’s next? Yup.’ Whatever you guys want to do we can do it.”