Haney is obviously talented but he definitely has a ceiling lower than what his technical skills suggest. I think he could beat Garcia though, to me that's a pretty even fight but 140... then 147, I can't see him capturing a title against elite foes there. I was hoping to see something different this past weekend from Haney in terms of power. Not that he would stop Linares but get some respect, maybe wobble him a time or two. I liked him being more aggressive but even sitting down on punches, he had nothing.
He doesn't have any, this should be fairly common knowledge. At the top level, this will hinder him. He'll still beat a lot of people.
No one with any boxing acumen believed that Algieri was anything more than a fringe gatekeeper. Haney, on the other hand, is considered by some to be a potential pound-for-pound type of talent. Therein lies the difference. Interestingly I've noticed that many of the same folks who are defending Haney had little trouble denouncing Loma's purported lack of power at 135lbs.
Chris is a very nice and articulate guy without a big ego. Much easier to back him, he also was quite the underdog figure for many, without a huge hype machine backing him.
Linares said after the fight that he was tentative because he thought he'd have more power if he caught him clean. Once he figured out he couldn't punch he just tried catching him in the middle of exchanges.
You really believe that he needed 7-8 rounds to figure it out? I don't know man. Linares was looking like **** in the first half of the fight. The first really good round he had was R9.
These are step up fights. The guy is only 22. Linares is not that easy to outpoint. He was winning some rounds against Lomachenko.
The biggest concern about Haney I saw in that fight wasn't his power but rather that his defensive reflexes are split second too slow... Linares was tagging him with the jab and landing his counters frequently enough to win plenty of those middle rounds IMO (but not enough to win the fight). Haney moves like Mayweather, but his processing speed is slightly shy of elite level... I can't see him going 12 rounds without eating something flush. This won't make a difference against Linares-level fighters but it will against guys with real speed and one-punch power.