Promoter Eddie Hearn is confident that Devin Haney’s latest win will pay dividends down the line, not just for Haney himself but for boxing as a whole.
 
Last Saturday night, Haney, the 25-year-old former undisputed lightweight champion, dominated Regis Prograis over 12 rounds to become the newly anointed WBC 140-pound titlist in what was Haney’s debut in the weight class. The fight was promoted by Hearn’s Matchroom and streamed on DAZN Pay-Per-View.

Haney pitched a shutout on all three judges’ cards and held Prograis to the least amount of punches connected in a title fight since CompuBox began recording punch statistics. 
 
Haney’s performance was bolstered by the reportedly more than 16,000 spectators that flocked to the Chase Center, the home of the Golden State Warriors, in San Francisco—a figure that caught many by surprise because Haney has never been a draw. (Haney, a resident of Henderson, Nevada, was born in the San Francisco Bay Area.)

The fight also drew attention because San Francisco is not known as a boxing hub; not since Andre Ward was still fighting has the city hosted a significant prizefight.

According to Hearn, Haney's success in San Francisco is a good look for a sport that all too often sees the top American fights take place in reliable, if stodgy, poles such as Las Vegas. In addition, Hearn believes Haney is now better equipped to call for fights against other stars based on his growing commercial viability.
 
“When we (Matchroom) came to America, we felt there was so much potential in big sport cities that haven’t been hosting boxing for some time,” Hearn said on The MMA Hour. “But there’s no analytics, no data that can give you confidence to go there, versus a gate in Las Vegas or in New York. Here you’ve got the Bay Area, where Devin is from. We’ve got a fantastic arena in the Chase Center, the home of the Warriors, they’ve got huge dates, a huge commercial presence in the city.

“It should work, but do you really want to make these guarantees towards the fighters on the basis that you’re going to hit, I don’t know, an 8 or 9,000 gate. We haven’t seen that before. So, to do 16,000 was incredible. It was great for US boxing, I think, that a new star coming in can fill up arenas in not a random city but one that isn’t a consistent host for boxing.
 
“For Devin’s career as well, it was a fantastic look, because now you’re looking at the other mega fights. Now he’s got the ammunition to say, look, ‘I just sold out San Francisco, we can do it in Vegas, we can do it in New York.’ You know now this kid can sell up the gate.”