When Bill Haney was his son Devin’s age he was over halfway through the 40 months he would serve in prison for possession and conspiracy to distribute two kilograms of cocaine.

Aged 22 in 1992 he had become involved in the drug scene in Kentucky, where he had briefly studied – he had first sold marijuana and cocaine as a teenager in Oakland, California – and, at a time when his father was struggling with terminal cancer, he found himself in court being sentenced for his crimes.

Haney had been due to serve 60 months at Lompoc Penitentiary, but was released after 40 partly because of his good behaviour. On his first night behind bars he felt a sense of relief owing not only to the conclusion of what had felt like a lengthy trial, but a realisation that without transforming his life he risked being killed on the streets.

His aunt had once posed as his mother when Haney – crippled by peer pressure that even contributed to him hiding that he attended a catholic private school – had ended up in what was known in Oakland as a 'juvenile hall'. His eldest son Willian Jr had visited him, aged two, at Lompoc Penitentiary; he had started to reinvent himself upon his release, and his next son Devin was born in 1998.

“Oakland was considered the city of dope; couldn’t be saved by John the pope,” said Haney, quoting the rapper Too Short and ultimately the genre of music that after his release gave him his way out.

Aged 15 he had financed the purchase of his first car – an Oldsmobile Cutlass he parked away from his parents’ house to avoid them learning of its existence – and in his early 20s he watched his mother weep when his sentencing had 'broken her heart'. In prison, however, he made a friend who would help him break into the music industry in Oakland, and it was his passion and knowledge of music that helped shape his second son into the undisputed lightweight champion of the world.

Determined to ensure his family could escape the same environment that had once corrupted him, Haney – who by then had established a hip hop record label and worked with Aaliyah and DMX and on the soundtrack for Romeo Must Die – left his wife and two sons behind to move to Las Vegas to build a life that would allow them to follow him.

When they joined him, Devin – having been taught by Bill to defend himself while they remained in Oakland – repeatedly fighting in school led to his school principle, 'like a warden from the prison', voicing his concerns to his father. In turn, Bill, hoping doing so would lead to Devin losing and then instead concentrating on American football, took him to a local boxing gym where the retired professional Derrick Harmon immediately saw that he was 'a natural'.

“When [Devin’s mum] told me she was pregnant, I knew I couldn’t go back to prison,” Haney told talkSPORT.

“[In Oakland] I wanted him to be able to defend himself. Early on we watched Aaron Pryor; ‘Sugar’ Ray Leonard; we had the VCR so we’d rewind it back and study what they did. I’d wanted him to do another sport.

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“[When I was a teenager] we had a park; all the drug dealers from all the different neighbourhoods and you would put your best guy in the ring and we would all bet on who had the toughest kid in the neighbourhood. We’d rope off the areas; get some boxing gloves; no mouthpiece.

“[Devin’s principle] insinuated that there was something that was wrong with me, and my upbringing, that had Devin acting that way – something going on in our home life. I was upset and frustrated that this thing was potentially backfiring on me – teaching him how to defend himself so that he didn’t have to learn it in the streets.

“‘I’m going to take you to the [Round One Boxing] gym, and let’s see what you can do with some guys that really know how to fight’. He looked back at me, ‘Okay’. He wasn’t intimidated at all.

“Devin was eight. I’d never heard that description. [Until then] nobody had said that he was a ‘natural’.”

Inspired by what he had been told Bill Haney opened The Hit Factory – a boxing gym, with a recording studio in a separate room, that mostly attracted Vegas’ strippers – to nurture his son’s considerable talent and his own education as a trainer, and to generate the income he would need to eventually focus on Devin full-time.

He invested time and money in, among others, Roger and Floyd Mayweather Sr, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Virgil Hunter, Roy Jones Jr, Devin’s godfather Yoel Judah, and Billy Giles, and learned from their respected minds.

When Devin, by then aged 12, was struggling to find competitive sparring in what had become their home city, Bill then sold a California-based property he had inherited, the cars he owned, and even his watches to buy a Sprinter van and commit to homeschooling him while taking him on the road. Doing so had even meant again leaving his wife, William Jr, and for the first time his then-infant son Shaun behind.

“Devin never had a bloody nose; he’s never had a busted lip; never got his tooth knocked out; never been knocked down; never had a black eye,” Bill, both his trainer and manager, explained.

His teenaged son’s ongoing progress as an amateur fighter was complemented by him becoming an internet sensation when they uploaded to YouTube footage of his remarkable skills and even caught the attention of Bird Man, 50 Cent and Jay Z.

One final significant risk was then taken when, aged 17, they decided he should turn professional in 2015 in the hostile locale of Tijuana, Mexico – the city that had shaped Erik Morales and Antonio Margarito – in the belief that doing so would accelerate the development of his strength and skills.

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Bill and Devin Haney would have felt vindicated when he made history by emerging with all four world lightweight titles when, in Melbourne in June 2022, he convincingly outboxed Australia’s George Kambosos Jr – the product of another father-son team.

On Saturday the great Vasyl Lomachenko and his father and trainer Anatoly will confront the Haneys at Vegas’ MGM Grand. There would no doubt once have been a time when the gifted Lomachenko, 35, would have been described as a 'natural'. For everything the 24-year-old Haney and his father have conquered together, the Ukrainian represents their greatest test.

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