There’s no such thing as a quiet week in boxing—not when egos swing harder than hooks and reputations are just one mic drop away from getting bruised. One name that’s been at the center of drama lately is Devin Haney, who, after managing to land a welterweight title match with the WBO champion Brian Norman Jr. on November 22 in Riyadh, got into a brawl with Norman and his team a few days ago. Though his security managed to take it over, the visuals from the scuffle became the new talking point. He then found himself in another verbal tussle the next day with IBF super lightweight champion Richardson Hitchins on the sidelines of the ‘Ring IV’ event in New York. If that wasn’t enough, another boxer took a dig at him recently.
It all kicked off when Conor Benn spoke to Boxing Social a few days ago. While hyping up a rematch with Chris Eubank Jr., Benn couldn’t resist tossing jabs at other names in the mix. And when the interviewer brought up Haney, the British welterweight didn’t hold back. “Devin Haney, he’s a track star,” he smirked. “I would rather tune in to watch Jake Paul fight.” Oof. That’s not just shade—that’s a solar eclipse.
Naturally, the former undisputed lightweight champion wasn’t going to let that one slide. When Boxing Social caught up with ‘The Dream’ for his take, the 26-year-old didn’t waste a breath. “We know Conor Benn lost his last fight. That’s what we do know,” he snapped. “So, he got unfinished business over there that he need to take care of.”
When reminded that Benn plans to come down to 147 lbs after the rematch, Haney stayed icy: “I don’t know. He lost his last fight. I don’t really care about him right now. He lost.” Then, almost like setting up a 1–2 combination, Haney name-dropped another fighter with a checkered past. “If that was the case, I’d go fight Ryan Garcia. If I wanted to go fight a PED cheater and a guy that lost his last fight, I might as well go fight Ryan Garcia, right?”
@Realdevinhaney responds to @ConorNigel ‘track star’ comments
Full interview
https://t.co/SjuwijmsqQ#DevinHaney #ConorBenn pic.twitter.com/eYSebUaQuD
— Boxing Social (@boxing_social) July 13, 2025
The ‘PED cheat’ reference to Conor Benn’s failed VADA test in 2022. For Devin Haney, it was enough to draw a parallel between the Briton and Ryan Garcia. “It’s the same thing. Same thing. They both been popped for PEDs and they both lost their last fight. If that’s the case, a bigger fight is Ryan Garcia. I might as well go fight him,” Haney exclaimed. That has got to sting Conor Benn.
Conor Benn’s drug saga: will boxing ever forgive him?
In the high-stakes arena of boxing, reputations can crumble faster than a glass jaw. And for Conor Benn—son of British boxing legend Nigel Benn—the past few years have felt less like a career and more like a courtroom. Back in 2022, just days before he was set to rekindle a family rivalry against Chris Eubank Jr., the then-unbeaten welterweight was engulfed in controversy when two adverse drug-test results surfaced. The substance? Clomifene—a banned fertility drug. The timing couldn’t have been worse.
From that moment, Benn’s battle shifted from the ring to a much murkier opponent: public perception. “I didn’t think I was going to make it through this period,” he admitted during an emotional 2023 interview with Piers Morgan. When asked if he was feeling suicidal, he quietly confessed, “Yeah, I’d say so. And it upsets me now, because I don’t know how I got so bad.” His tears, while human, only deepened the divide, seen by some as signs of anguish, and by others as guilt bleeding through the cracks.
Since then, Benn has insisted on his innocence, investing over £1 million to clear his name. He and promoter Eddie Hearn claim he’s been “cleared” multiple times, though experts and critics are quick to note that “cleared to fight” doesn’t necessarily mean cleared of wrongdoing. In one infamous incident, when challenged about the ambiguity of those rulings, Benn snapped at a journalist, threatening to drag him out of the interview “by the neck.”
Still, he’s back. Whether that redemption arc will be embraced or booed is still anyone’s guess.
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