Devin Haney couldn’t stand still, looked nervous as he bounced around during his face-off with WBO welterweight champion Brian Norman Jr. at today’s final press conference for their fight this Saturday, November 22, at the ANB Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Haney (32-0, 16 KOs) looked cross-eyed, stuttered when he spoke, and showed fear throughout the press conference. His attempts to mask his fear by jumping around didn’t work. Looking at him, you could tell he didn’t want to be on stage in Norman Jr’s presence.
The conference that Haney fought once before Ryan Garcia is gone. He’s been like a different person since suffering that three-hit loss. Today was just a clear example that Devin is still haunted by what happened.
Devin’s last fight was against Jose Ramirez, in which he ran around the ring for 12 rounds looking like a war veteran coming off the battlefield, mentally broken. Haney doesn’t seem to have recovered from that experience.
Turki Alalshikh is going to rumble in the front row if Haney puts on another Jerry-like performance on Saturday, as he did against Jose Ramirez at Times Square in New York. He’s paying Haney a fortune to be on this card, and he’s already mandated his famous no Tom and Jerry.
“We’re fighting everybody else,” a nervous Devin Haney said when asked about his reaction to Brian Norman Jr’s comment at today’s final press conference that he was going to run away from him on Saturday night. “I fought (Jose) Ramirez differently than I fought Loma. I fought Loma differently than I fought Regis.
At this point, it is doubtful that Haney will take a hard hit from Norman Jr. can take without suffering flashbacks of what happened to him against Ryan. That’s if he doesn’t immediately go down from the shot.
“So, the world needs to see what game plan my team and I have come up with, and how I’m going to beat this guy,” Haney said. “No, I think he’s a good fighter,” Devin said when reminded of his recent comment about calling Norman Jr. a ‘bum’. “Devin Haney, WBO champion,” Haney said of his prediction for Saturday.
Whatever game plan Haney’s team “set up”, it is doubtful that he will be able to follow it. When a vet suffering from fatigue is thrown back into the front lines, they are unreliable and don’t follow orders. The most likely thing we’ll see from Haney on Saturday is a repeat of what he did against Ramirez, with him on his bike, doing everything he can to avoid getting hit.
“If I want to go to the cards, I can do it. If I want to knock him out, I’m definitely going to do it anyway,” Norman Jr. said. “It’s me stamping my name in the game. The boy is going to sleep.”
Last updated on 20/11/2025
