โTHATโS the worst thing in the world,โ says Bill Haney of being denied permission to travel to Australia with his son Devin for the fight with George Kambosos Jnr that had the potential to make their careers.
Refused a visa because of a conviction in 1992 โ before Devin had been born โย when aged 22 he was imprisoned for 40 months for possession and conspiracy to distribute two kilograms of cocaine, his persistence meant that an appeal led to him unexpectedly and dramatically being given a visa to travel the day before last Juneโs fight, and that as his trainer and manager he would work his sonโs corner the night history was made.
The significance of the extent to which his past had continued to haunt him, however โ and for all that he knows may have cost victory โ regardless remains at the forefront of his mind. โThatโs why I want every father and son to be conscious of your past following you,โ he continues, to Boxing News. โNo matter what youโre doing today, youโll suffer later on. Even if you are the smoothest, flyest, sharpest, baddest motherโย moving. It can come back and haunt you and your kids, and thatโs what that did.
โA lot of the time when youโre young, youโre doing it just to be doing it. [But] when Devin got on the airplane I was more relieved that he was going to handle business without me, because we had reached a point where he was no longer just a great fighter and a champion โ he was a real man. One hundred per cent a manโs man. โPop, Iโm bringing these belts back home to you โย Iโm coming straight to you.โโ
Haney, of Oakland, California, had been studying in Kentucky shortly before his arrest. โOakland was considered the city of dope; couldnโt be saved by John the pope,โ he says. โThatโs a Too Short song. I went to Kentucky to get a new start at college; my mum wanted me to get into journalism, and everything was going good. I met some people, off-campus, who were selling drugs. Then when I went back home, for the summer, I didnโt go back to the college, but I stayed in touch with the locals. Just as friends; partying, and stuff like that. I told some friends [in Oakland] โ we went back out there for a run, and I was arrested. It wasnโt the first time. It was a conspiracy involving the locals and the guys in California. I was the youngest guy [involved].
โIโve never wanted to let my parents down, so I never let them know the things that I was involved in. I was selling drugs and stuff at 14, 15 years old, in the neighbourhood. That was the nature of Oakland. It started out as weed, and then cocaine. Iโd come from a blue-collar family; mum worked for General Motors; dad worked for the airlines. They told me the right thing to do, but thereโs a whole lot of peer pressure that I succumbed to. It landed me in juvenile hall. Instead of calling [my parents] I called an aunt. She posed as my mum and came and picked me up, so for a long time they didnโt know.
โMy mum and dad couldnโt afford to buy a 15-year-old kid a car, and I was too young, so I would park the car [I bought] around the corner. It was an Oldsmobile Cutlass.
โ[I felt] shame and guilt [when I was arrested]. My dad was going through cancer โย he was dying. [My parents] did the best that they could. I went to private school โ the peer pressure in the neighbourhood of going to a Catholic school wasnโt easy, so I would take my shirt and sweater off, put it in my bag and wear a white t-shirt with khaki pants.
โMy mum came down to the sentencing in Kentucky. It was bittersweet, because I knew it would be either prison or, potentially, I could have died on the streets. Once they laid the sentence down [pauses]โฆ I looked over at her, and of course she was crying, and my eyes were watering, and I just knew that I had broken her heart. When I got back to the cell it was almost like a sense of relief that the whole case and whole conspiracy had come to an end, because it was a long trial.
โ[In Lompoc Penitentiary] I got a chance to see all of the guys that were a whoโs who of the criminal underworld, so it gave me the education to know that crime wasnโt all it was cracked up to be. All of the big guys were there as well, and they told me Iโd got off with a slap on my wrist. To me, at 22, it seemed like an eternity, but a lot of guys took a liking to me, and told me they didnโt want me to come back there, because they all had life sentences, and 20 and 30 years. My oldest son, William Jnr [then two], came to the prison to see me, and I sat down with a lot of old Gs to tell him how much it hurt me for my son to be out there by himself.โ
The birth of Devin, his second son, in 1998 gave Haney further cause to reinvent himself โ which he partly achieved by relocating to Las Vegas. โThe [school] principal asked me what was going on โย why was [eight-year-old] Devin fighting?โ he says from a sofa at the Top Rank gym in the same city from which he is casually chewing his way through a pack of seeds. โHe was insinuating something was going on in Devinโs home life โย I hated that. Like a warden from the prison. I took him to a gym to get his butt whooped, so he could get back to playing [American] football, and we run into this guy, right here. Derrick Harmon [sat nearby].
โDerrick said, โMan, your kid is a naturalโ. From that point I did everything in my power to help him with his natural god-given gift.โ
Before leaving Oakland, with the help of a fellow inmate Haney had forged his way into the music industry and established a record label that focused largely on hip hop โ the same genre of music that can be heard while his son trains. โI worked on the [i]Romeo Must Die[i] soundtrack with Aaliyah, and DMX,โ he says. โIf you build a recording studio, the artists were going to come. With that theory, I built a boxing gym on Sahara called The Hit Factory. Between Las Vegas Boulevard and Paradise.
โI was able to bring in coaches; have classes. Strippers in the city would come to the gym [โThatโs all that was there,โ interjects another friend]. I catered to teaching the industry girls on the strip. They paid a premium, and through that I was able to keep the doors open but also attract other coaches and fighters. The sole goal in mind was getting Devin to learn the game of boxing. Iโm gonna build this one [Devinโs 13-year-old brother Shaun] an indoor tennis facility.
โWe also put a recording studio in the back, to make music, โcause I was still dibbling and dabbling in that. But nothing took off or showed the promise that Dev did.โ
There evolved the education as a fighter for not only Devin, but as a trainer for Bill. There has been time and money invested into seeing and learning from Roger and Floyd Mayweather Snr, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Virgil Hunter, Roy Jones Jnr, Devinโs godfather Yoel Judah, Billy Giles, Ben Davison, and more.
โI took the hook from Eddie,โ he says. โI took the defence from Roger โย the roll in and roll out. Roy Jones is, โNever be in a neutral positionโ. Virgil Hunter is, โThe three lines of defenceโ; hand-fighting. Floyd Snr, of course, is the shoulder roll. Floyd Jnr was, โYou gotta be able to go both directionsโ; the lateral movement, that Ryan [Garcia, against Gervonta Davis] didnโt have. I wanted him to be the best, all-round, complete fighter. Once you pay for it, you learn it โย they werenโt doing it for free. They just wanted a token to show that youโre not trying to use them.
โIt got to the point that Dev [aged 12] got so good that we couldnโt get the work that we wanted to โ the sparring. We were always going to someone elseโs gym, so I shut the gym down โ the cost and time that I would spend to keep it clean โย and put full devotion into Dev and getting on the road. My next assignment was wanting Devin to not be scared of any guy. I didnโt want him to just be in Las Vegas and be, โDetroit guys are tougher; Chicago guys are tougherโ, so I got a Sprinter van, and we got on the road and I started homeschooling him.
โI sold some property I inherited from my grandmother, in California. I had to do what I had to do as a parent. Those were definitely the tough times [financially]. I was not only shutting the gym down; I was selling everything I had from the drug business, and the legal life. One by one the things were going. The watches; the cars; I was selling my whole life to get him the experience that he needed.โ
Perhaps the greatest sacrifice at taking so considerable a risk involved leaving the young Shaun behind โย not unlike he had when, with William in his infancy, Bill found himself in prison, or when he first moved to Vegas and, before they could follow him, left his wife Samantha and sons behind.
โ[That was] very tough,โ continues Haney Snr, who Devin once described to BN as his โbest friendโ. โ[But] he was just in love with the sport, and the sport was loving him back. We were like the Lone Ranger and Silver. He was riding through the amateurs; win after win after win; tournament after tournament. I know [by then] I got something special. As heโs going up the ladder in the amateurs, I still had my music connects โ everybody wants to be involved. But no one gave me the complete confidence and dedication that he did. No one believed that I could connect the dots the way he did. [Itโs like] Iโm in the [music] business and Iโm looking for the one artist whoโs going to let me not just be a part of it, [but] let me executive produce it. Do what I knew that ultimately I could do.โ
The same entrepreneurial spirit inspired father and son to continue to defy established wisdom to then make public footage of what would typically be private sparring sessions, in turn making the gifted Devin โ not unlike Floyd Mayweather Jnr โ a crossover attraction for the digital age. There was also the vision to take him to Mexico to fight as a professional at the age of 17, in the belief that his progress would accelerate more than if he remained an amateur, and therefore experience gained fighting 10 times in Tijuana โ often against physically mature opponents in front of hostile crowds.
โIโm letting him rub shoulders with a lot of the music heads as a marketing plan to attract an audience,โ Haney says. โNo one was using YouTube like theyโre using it now. Everyone wanted to be on linear television. We went to Jay Zโs house to talk about a deal; meetings with 50 Cent; Birdman; the whoโs who of Whoseville. Something I learned in music is ownership. Means a whole lot in business. So does it in boxing.
โWe went to Tijuana. Met a guy called Repo Rick โ the bridge to Mexico. It was the perfect breeding ground for Devin. He would then be able to deal with the crowds. Adversity would prepare one day for us to be at Australia, at Marvel Stadium, with all the boos.โ
It was there, in Melbourne, where Haney so convincingly outboxed Kambosos Jnr, the rugged Australian who had so unexpectedly defeated the talented Teofimo Lopez โ who in his previous fight had conquered none other than Vasyl Lomachenko. The years of risk and sacrifice from both father and son had ultimately been vindicated. There was even the moment between Haney Snr and Kambosos Jnr โย one parent consoling anotherโs child, more aware than ever that in the realisation of a long-term dream someone elseโs had been crushed.
โIt was another father-and-son team going for history; legacy,โ he says. โYou got to love two guys that hang in there through thick and thin. I wished them well. It was strictly about boxing and performing in front of the fans and winning an event, but not destroying another family. I got to know a side of his dad that most people donโt know. A protective, competitive, 100 per cent down-for-his-son father. It was a pleasure sharing that experience with him.
โIt was an incredible feeling [to watch Devin win]. Complete euphoria. Iโm used to seeing him whoop ass โย that ainโt nothing new. But when they actually raised his hand, thatโs different than going through the process โ [when] Iโm caught up in the moment.โ
In the opposite corner in Vegas on Saturday will be another father-son team in the great Vasyl and Anatoly Lomachenko. Devin Haney, Gervonta Davis, Ryan Garcia and Lopez were once anointed as the modern eraโs answer to the revered Four Kings, but after high-profile defeats Garcia and Lopez have already been discounted. In their absence, Lomachenko, Shakur Stevenson, and most recently Andy Cruz have appeared likelier long-term challengers to Haney and Davis. At the MGM Grand Garden Arena five will then almost certainly become four.
โThis is the biggest test of Devinโs career,โ says his father and trainer. โThis is Lomaโs biggest test. Thatโs what makes for the most important event, as today, of 2023. Itโs for lightweight supremacy.
โ[We have] one of the blessed partnerships in the world โย being a partnership in our last name and not our first. We represent Hidden Individual Talent. That was the [gym, HIT] Factory that Devin came out of.
โWhen you looked at him, youโd never believe the things he had inside. So I hope everybody being told that their kid is too aggressive, is not paying attention, is fighting too muchโฆ Give โem a shot. They might be a champion.โ