Haney-Tank Online Beef Reeks of Nothingness

The latest online beef comes in the form of Devin Haney and Gervonta “Tank” Davis, who’ve recently been mixing it up on social media, big time.

This particular virtual scrap began with a comment Davis made about Haney’s personal style and earning power.

“Why are they paying me 5x more than you, like I have all the belts? Another thing, stop trying to be me, chump. The people starting to notice,” Davis blasted at Haney via social media.

Unified lightweight champ Haney, of course, was not going to let those big shots slide. He’d come back with a string of counters via his verified Twitter account.

“He never gonna fight nobody he 27 with a Mickey Mouse belt & the best person on his resume is Pedraza foh…

“Funny he got so much to say after my fight get announced but wasn’t he the same p**sy that was saying he was gonna fight me next if I beat kambosos?? After the fight we ain’t hear sh*t

“this clown say I wanna b like him everybody getting money shopping at the same stores buying the same cars doing all the same sh*t! Been the same cycle forever! Tell that insecure punk if he got a problem with a ni**a across town having just as much as him to go jump off a bridge

Now go to the store… & get some belts.”

The frustrating part about these social media scraps that have popped up between the stars of this weight range is that, so far, they’ve been entirely relegated to online battles. Nothing has transferred over to the ring, where all of these beefs should wind up.

In the 135-140 lb. weight range, we have talents such as Haney, Davis, Ryan Garcia, Teofimo Lopez, Vasiliy Lomachenko, and Josh Taylor. And, so far, even with egos flaring and words raging, only one actual fight among the above has taken place– Lopez-Lomachenko back in 2020, and that was forced into being due to Lopez’s mandatory challenger status.

The argument in some quarters is that these guys can’t fight each other right now because of obligations to meet other opponents. Haney, for example, is tied to a rematch with former unified champ George Kambosos. But that really doesn’t hold water because, other than Haney, none of these other guys are really tied to anything or anyone else– except for their network/promotional obligations.

And that, right there, may be the REAL reason all of these big talents are stuck fighting their fights on social media. Business prevents these big fights from happening. Cross-promotional, cross-platform fights are exceedingly difficult to make unless there’s an insane amount of money involved. And while all of the fighters mentioned above are great talents and well-known entities in the boxing world, they are not the kind of crossover stars who can generate the next-level money that would make networks execs and promoters want to sit down and negotiate a divide-the-pie deal with one another.

The fighters COULD put their collective feet down and demand big fights against relevant top-tier talent, but why WOULD they when they’re currently earning good money for significantly less risky fights?

While the machismo is flying out in public, the common sense– the business sense– is guiding them behind the scenes and their respective bodies of work show this reality.

Will this dynamic change any time soon? Honestly…it’s doubtful. None of the big fights in this weight range are under discussion and few, really, have a path to being made.

So, in the meantime, fans will have to settle for online beefs and hope that the boxing business eventually sorts itself out.