Devin Haney has taken criticism over his “white boy” comments seriously.
The unbeaten lightweight was asked during a YouTube Live session about the prospect of facing Ukrainian star Vasiliy Lomachenko, the fighter many believe is the No. 1 fighter in the world pound-for-pound.
“I can tell you this: I will never lose to a white boy in my life,” Haney said. “I don’t care what nobody got to say. Listen, can’t no white boy beat me, I don’t care, on any day of the week. I fight a white boy like 10 times, I’m gonna beat him 10 times.”
Haney, who is black, was criticized on social media for injecting race into the otherwise typical trash-talk conversations.
The 21-year-old responded with two Tweets.
He wrote in the first: “I’m not racist and I never will be a racist. I’m chasing greatness.
And in the second: “I just had a very positive conversation with Mauricio Sulaiman, president of the WBC, and confirmed to him directly my commitment to be a role model and my absolute rejection of discrimination of any kind.” Sulaiman “liked” the second Tweet.
Lomachenko was scheduled to fight fellow titleholder Teofimo Lopez on May 30 but that fight was postponed indefinitely because of the coronavirus.
Haney won the WBC 135-pound title by shutting out Alfredo Santiago in October but was declared “champion in recess” when he had to have shoulder surgery and couldn’t defend against No. 1 challenger Javier Fortuna.
The WBC then ordered Fortuna and Luke Campbell to fight for the vacant title but that fight never happened because of the pandemic. Meanwhile, Haney petitioned the WBC to reinstate him as champion.
Lomachenko is the WBC’s “franchise champion.”
