A year and a half after his unstoppable rise was hijacked, the 26-year-old boxing star aims to become a three-weight champion against big-punching Brian Norman Jr
R
ain falls in thin, needling lines over Hell’s Kitchen as Devin Haney walks into the Victory Boxing Gym. Somewhere along Ninth Avenue an ambulance threads through the congestion, its siren drawn out into a long, mournful ribbon that slips past the gym’s walls. He nods to a few familiar faces, peels off a Supreme Vanson leather jacket and begins to unwrap himself from the city. His father, Bill, arrives a step behind him, not so much entering the room as taking possession of it.
“The youngest undisputed champion!” Bill cries out, half to the gym, half to himself. “He’s done it on three continents! Twenty-six years old and still writing history! Let the sparks fly!”
The energy in the room seems to tilt toward the Haney clan, as it always does. Devin keeps his head down after taking a seat on the ring apron, winding the gauze around his knuckles with the same slow, practiced patience he’s carried since boyhood. Bill continues barking, rights and resentments and triumphs spilling out in a proud, protective crescendo. It’s a familiar ritual for the Haneys, father and son moving in concert. Bill has been here from the start, a self-styled Richard Williams of the hurt business: promoter, strategist, architect and hype man rolled into one. He has been shaping this trajectory since Devin was a boy, arranging professional fights in Tijuana when American commissions said he was too young. Lately, it’s a relentless leverage of social media to breathlessly tout his son’s achievements. “Everything we built came from a plan,” he says. “We believed in the plan before anyone else did.”
