Bill Haney confronted Ryan Garcia and his friend Lupe Valencia last Saturday in London at the Ring Awards. He posted a video of the confrontation on social media. It looked like he was trying to get their reaction, perhaps to encourage them to agree to fight his son, Devin.
London Confrontation
Bill said in his Tweet: “The biggest deal is on the table, and you can’t cheat Devin Haney in Riyadh season.”
Ryan has already said he will not fight Haney unless he drops his lawsuit. He mentioned that he’ll be facing WBO light welterweight champion Teofimo Lopez next, which puts Haney in a position where he’ll have to look in a different direction.
Turki Al-Shiekh wants to place Haney for one of his cards, but it could end badly for him if he insists on someone a little too good. We already saw that Haney couldn’t take a punch last April, getting blown out by Ryan in Brooklyn, New York.
There are a lot of questions about whether Haney will ever be the same after that beating, which was a bad one that saw him get dropped numerous times.
Bill Haney: “There you go ducking. I see you Lupe [Valencia]. I seen you trying to duck around there. You came out here [London] for nothing, huh? You’re ducking it, huh? Lupe, you ducked it, huh? Yeah, you ducked it. Yeah, y’all ducked it. Stay quiet.”
“Fishy Business”
“The only way he’s going to get any respect again is to fight me and to try to do better. So, I could see why he would say that,” said Ryan Garcia to Secondsout, reacting to being told that Devin Haney said that the only way back for him is through Ryan.
“But for me, that interests me for sure. I would be down to do a rematch, but a lot of things need to play out the way I need them to play out. So, first and foremost, he needs to drop that lawsuit if he wants to have a conversation about it,” said Garcia about Haney.
“To me, I thought that was a weak move by him, and now he wants to backtrack and say that’s how he’s going to get it back. Before, he was saying different. I’m ready to fight him. I already fought him and beat him.
“I’ll put my own predicament on it. We won’t be using VADA. We’ll be using the people I want to use because, for some reason, Bill Haney keeps saying VADA. It’s kind of strange to me. Why can’t I use USADA or some other organization?”
If Haney wants that rematch, he will have to do what Ryan says by dropping the lawsuit and talking nice to him. Bill must smile, play nice, and come at Ryan and Lupez with his good manners.
“It’s a little fishy to me that they love VADA, and VADA loves them. It’s just weird. If no one is asking those questions, I wonder why,” said Garcia. “I feel like they’re too entangled. It’s a conflict of interest. I know in my heart of hearts I never took steroids in my life, and to this day, I’ll go down until I die, saying I never did.”
I don’t think Bill Haney will give up on the idea of wanting VADA to be the testing agency for a rematch with Ryan. So, that’s another reason why there won’t be a rematch. Bill has his feet stuck in the mud, unwilling to budge. If he’s stubborn and intractable, poor Devin won’t get that rematch, and he’ll be stuck fighting whoever Turki wants him to. Again, that could be bad for Haney because Turki will want a quality guy at 140 or 147. Haney’s chin might not be up to it.
Garcia’s Response
“To me, that struck a nerve in me and tarnished my victory and made it into a no contest,” said Ryan. “All the things I worked for. That was my best victory, and they [the New York State Athletic Commission] took it away. So, yeah, I’m a little salty about it, and I’ll never use VADA again because, to me, that’s fishy.
“I tested negative all the way through, and all of a sudden, I’m positive after I beat him. Come on, and then all of a sudden, his brother posts way before everybody even knew that I was going to test positive. Nobody is asking these questions, and nobody is even carrying. So, it’s just absurd and weird to me.
“I’m not going to make accusations. Obviously, they [the Haneys] are already suing me already. So, I’m going to keep my mouth shut and say I don’t know what happened, but to me, it’s a little fishy,” said Ryan.
