Devin Haney: Dominant performance vs. Gamboa might scare off Davis, Lopez

We saw Teofimo Lopez Jr. dispatch Vasiliy Lomachenko to win three lightweight titles in the middle of October. Then this past Saturday, Gervonta Davis scored perhaps the best knockout of the year over Leo Santa Cruz. On Dec. 5, Ryan Garcia meets Luke Campbell in his toughest test to date.

The last member of the "Four Horsemen", Devin Haney, steps inside the ring on Saturday when he puts the WBC title on the line against Yuriorkis Gamboa. Seeing how good Lopez and Davis looked, one would assume that Haney would need to put on a dominant performance to keep up with his peers and secure bouts with them. Instead, Haney (24-0, 15 KOs) feels he needs to do the opposite to ensure he gets those contests.

"Honestly, I think I got to look bad to get these guys in the ring with me because the better I look, the more they will run," Haney said at Thursday's press conference. "I'm going to go in there, put on a statement performance, get the job done, and beat him worse than he's ever been beaten before."

Gamboa (30-3, 18 KOs) is Haney's most formidable opponent in his short career. The Cuban is a former unified featherweight champion, a 2004 Olympic gold medalist, and gave Davis a difficult bout, even while fighting with a torn Achilles tendon, before being stopped in the 12th round. The 21-year-old Haney feels this will be the fight where people will finally take notice and realize that he belongs with Lopez and Davis at the top of the heap in the 135-pound division.

"I have a lot of things I have to do to go in there and win," Haney said. "But the main thing is to go in there and dominate. I don't only want to get the win and coast. I want to go in there and make a statement. This fight will be a statement victory. I want to go in there (and) show him I'm the best fighter he's ever been in there with and that I'm different from anyone he's been in there with."