Inside the Henhouse: Bill Haney’s “Scouting” Expedition at Richardson Hitchins’ Gym

The old fox, Bill Haney, was in the henhouse today, on a scouting mission at Richardson Hitchins’ gym ahead of his defense of his IBF light welterweight title against George Kambosos Jr. on June 14th at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Bill claims he was on vacation, but now he’s back, scouting the competition, storing knowledge for future opponents for his son, Devin Haney, to fight.

Haney needs a solid win to make fans forget his timid performance against Jose Ramirez on the May 2nd card. The fight that Bill and Devin thought they were going to get against Ryan Garcia for October appears to have gone up in smoke due to the way they performed on the Times Squad card. However, Hitchins isn’t the opponent Haney needs to regain his credibility. He needs someone like Brian Norman Jr, Jaron Ennis, or Shakhram Giyasov.

Bill Haney: Scouting Mission

Hitchins (19-0, 7 KOs) is fighting one of Devin’s victims, Kambosos Jr. (22-3, 10 KOs), whom he beat twice in 2022 to become the undisputed lightweight champion. That was Haney’s career-best victory, and he’s not been able to equal that in his three fights since.

In a much criticized move, Richardson turned down a fight against former IBF 140-lb champion Subriel Matias in favor of a fight against Kambosos. The praise that Hitchins was briefly getting for defeating Liam Paro to capture the IBF title last December evaporated overnight after he rejected taking a fight against Matias. Fans saw it as a duck, which is a pretty accurate view. When you turn down a fight against Subriel in favor of 2-3 Kambosos, there’s no other way to interpret the move.

Hitchins has been hard trying to build up Kambosos’s name to make him seem more credible in the public’s eyes. He almost sounds like he’s Kambosos’ promoter with the glazing he’s been doing.

Richardson Hitchins: “Nah, he don’t want to do that,” said Hitchins to Fighthype when told that he heard that Devin Haney wants to come back down to 140. “Ever since I became [IBF light welterweight] champion, Haney got the f*** up out of there.”

Bill Haney: “I’ll tell you one thing. I was on vacation, but now, I’m back working. I’m scouting. Yeah, I’m scouting the champ [Hitchins].”

Hitchins: “June 14th, I’m going to show him what his son [Devin] should have done to George Kambosos. What he did was cool, boxing and whatever. What I’m going to do to one of his son’s best wins, it’s going to be nasty. We’re going to wake him up with this fight,” said Hitchins when told that the Times Square card in New York that Haney fought on was ‘Boring.’

Bill: “Just be careful. Eat easily, eat smartly because Kambosos ain’t easy to chew. Devin made it look like that. Kambosos is a good fighter. I’m expecting a good match between two tremendously talented fighters, and I’m going to be here and I’m going to be watching. But I’m scouting right now.”