Welcome to GOLF’s Fully Equipped’s weekly Tour equipment report. Each Friday of PGA Tour weeks (plus other times, if news warrants), GOLF equipment editor Jack Hirsh will run you through some of the biggest news surrounding golf clubs on Tour, including changes, tweaks and launches.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Ping’s G440 K just earned perhaps its toughest conversion yet.
Viktor Hovland has a boatload of golf clubs still in his bag from 2019-2020, the years of his first two wins on the PGA Tour. But he has one less this week as his venerable G425 LST driver took a back seat to Ping’s new G440 K driver.
Hovland is a notoriously hard switcher when it comes to his gear, still playing Ping’s i210 irons and a Ping Glide 2.0 60˚ wedge. When it comes to the driver, he’s been close to switching to one of Ping’s new G440 line of drivers before. He made a surprise switch to G440 LST at the Masters last year before returning to the 425 before his next event.
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But he was really impressed with the new 440 K in his initial testing.
“The spin consistency off the face is a joke,” he said on Tuesday. “If I hit it off the heel or the toe with a 425, the spin discrepancy is very large. Like if I hit it off the toe, I can spin it under 2000. If I hit it off the heel, I can maybe get up to 3000. Versus the 440, it’s very tight. It goes from maybe 2000 to 2600, so a huge gap. And it’s also faster.
“However, the problem is it launches a little bit higher for me. And for some reason, just with the setup that I’ve tested with, it tends to go a bit more to the right. Right now, with my golf swing, when I get stuck, my miss is already a high-right miss.”
Hovland would have been content to stick with the G425 this week, had it not been for poor performance off the tee on Monday, leading to an evening text to Ping Tour Rep Kenton Oates.
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“Monday night, he wanted to try some shorter drivers, 45 inches,” Oates told GOLF. “And I was like, ‘Well, this is a perfect time to keep trying the K because the shorter length will take off some height and should help reduce the right miss.”
What’s interesting is that the unique properties of the K driver, a large profile driver with an extremely deep and low CG, should help players square the club face. In early testing, it didn’t go as far right as the 440 LST did, but it was still far enough right for Hovland to start the season in Dubai with his trusty G425.
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But this week, Oates decided not only to have Hovland test the K with a shorter build, but also with a different shaft, the Mitsubishi Whiteboard 73 TX.
“The one thing that we’ve always noticed and seen is very good start line tendencies. It’ll start where you’re swinging it and kind of just stay with you really well,” Oates said. “That WB did exactly kind of what Viktor needs this K to do: go a little bit lower and go a little bit more left.”
That was the final build Hovland went with. Despite the .75″ shorter shaft than his previous driver, Hovland was still retaining a 173-175 mph ball speed with more consistentcy and hitting his optimal 9˚-10˚ launch window with 2300 rpm of spin.
If you look closely at the shaft, you’ll see the shaft graphics are actually facing up, the opposite side on what they previously are. That’s because the shaft was actually built earlier this week for Ben Griffin, who also tested it in a G440 K.
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Mitsubishi Chemical Diamana WB Wood Shaft
The board is back. After a few years away, the vintage surfboard always associated with Diamana™ makes its return with Diamana WB. Built on an extraordinarily popular and tour-proven platform, WB brings classic low-low performance and the legendary stability and control you’ve come to expect after two decades.
The first in the 6th Generation Diamana™ family, WB is designed with all the traditional branding that made Diamana™ so beloved, including flowers in the handle section, a surfboard behind the Diamana logo, and return to the original 53/63/73/83 weight class designations. But rest assured, the only thing throwback about Diamana™ WB is its appearance. Indeed, super high-modulus 80-ton Dialead Pitch Fiber is used in the butt section to deliver maximum stability and increased energy transfer and high modulus 46-ton fiber is used in the shaft’s angle plies to reduce torque without increasing weight for improved control and stability. Carbon fiber orientation at the tip section is optimized to further lower torque.
The classic feel of this Diamana™ profile is achieved through the use of our proprietary Xlink Tech™ Resin System and MR70 technologies. Our Xlink Tech™ Resin System increases the strength and durability of the shaft while driving carbon fiber volume up for better feel. Feel and strength is further increased through the use of our aerospace-grade MR70 fiber – our strongest fiber to date.
“The shaft that Victor’s played for 5 years was a James Hahn backup driver because Hovland broke his driver in Mexico,” Oates joked. “So maybe that’s our key to getting Viktor into new product is just build stuff for other players and then work for him.”
Griffin plays his drivers at 44.75″ and neutral but Hovland uses his driver Ping’s flat setting, the opposite side of the adaptor. So the shaft ended up at 45″ when installed in Hovland’s preferred setting.
Griffin also ended up making the move to the 440 K from his G430 Max 10K this week because he was actually seeing the driver reduce his miss.
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New Ping G440 K driver officially in play for Ben Griffin at WM.
Watching him crank this thing on the range on Monday was fun, but he actually seemed like he was gonna stick with his G430 Max 10k.
Ben has loved to test new gear lately, but he says he rarely likes to switch.… pic.twitter.com/0ZYyT8tJhy
Ping built him several drivers to test at home while he took last week off but he didn’t end up trying them until he got to TPC Scottsdale on Monday. During a Monday afternoon session, Griffin dialed in both a 440 K build and new 430 Max 10K build that could potentially go in, but after playing with it during the week, Griffin went with the new K and his gamer UST Lin-Q Powercore White 7TX shaft.
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The three-time winner in 2025 is also using a new Maxfli Tour X-LS golf ball, which he said allows him to swing hard at the ball with his driver and not worry about the ball spinning too much.
Maxfli announced a three-year extension with Ben Griffin, which is now the only equipment partnership the three-time PGA Tour winner has for this season.
Had a really fun chat with Ben on Monday on going going the free agent route for his clubs, and he said Maxfli was the gear… pic.twitter.com/KGKf9fwd0l
“I’m a pretty high ball flight player. I’m able to put a lot of spin on the ball,” Griffin told GOLF this week. “So this new golf ball that’s come out, the Tour X-LS, is able to keep the same profile ball that I’m playing, yet knock down the spin numbers a little bit and knock down the trajectory height for me and it’s going to be a perfect golf ball.”
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Why a game improvement hybrid is trending on Tour
Last week, Cam Young did something very strange with his bag.
Young, who had been playing a GT2 hybrid, switched to to a 20-degree GT1 hybrid with a Mitsubishi Diamana PD 80TX fairway wood shaft last week for Torrey Pines’ deep rough. It’s stayed in his bag for this week at TPC Scottsdale too. Tom Kim is doing the same with one in a hybrid shaft.
Really cool story going on with @Titleist right now with both Cam Young and Tom Kim adding the GT1 hybrid to the bag last week and keeping it for this week.
Young’s (pictured) especially because it was built with a fairway wood shaft to play as a 5-wood.
The GT1 is a unique club in the Titleist lineup with an oversized, almost fairway wood-like profile and the unique ability to accept both fairway wood and hybrid shafts. Unlike the other two GT hybrids which have left-to-right CG adjustability, the GT1 has fore-and-aft adjustability.
While the GT1 fairway wood, with a large and shallow profile, has gained traction on the PGA Tour, Titleist Senior Director of Player Promotions JJ Van Wezenbeeck said last week at Torrey Pines offered an opportunity to reintroduce the GT1 hybrid to players looking for versatility.
“When we look at GT1, we’re not looking at it solely for slower speed players,” Van Wezenbeeck told GOLF. “We’re looking for trajectory reasons. This is an opportunity for us to do kind of these unique builds on this in-between club.”
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The GT1 has a sharp leading edge that allows it to sit close to the turf, making it easy to launch. That high ball flight was great for the rough at Torrey Pines or the firm desert greens this week at TPC Scottsdale.
But it’s the ability of the GT1 to take a fairway wood shaft, which will play softer than a larger tip diameter hybrid shaft, that makes the club so versitile for fitting.
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“For Cam Young, we were trying to create more of a 5-wood type golf club, so we were able to build it with a 5-wood shaft and use a .335 tip on the interior diameter, but a hybrid outside diameter [on the hosel]. We get kind of the best of both,” Van Wezenbeeck said.
Big Tone goes low torque
Tony Finau made an under-the-radar switch to a new Ping Scottsdale Tec Ally Blue Onset putter last week during his T11 finish at the Farmers Insurance Open.
Finau hasn’t gained strokes putting for a PGA Tour season since 2022 and had lost more than a stroke in each of the first two events of the season. So he showed up at Torrey Pines looking to try a mallet from his PLD Milled Anser 2D.
Tony Finau made a really surprising change to a Ping Scottsdale Tec Ally Blue Onset putter.
Not only does it make Finau the latest player to move to a low torque putter, but it also moves him away from the milled face of his previous PLD Anser 2D.
This isn’t the first time Finau has used a mallet as he tried an PLD Milled Ally Blue Onset previously at last summer’s FedEx St. Jude Championship.
Ping Tour rep Dylan Goodwin told GOLF they started with the new and unreleased Scottsdale Tec mallet putters since they just arrived on Tour at the end of last season at the RSM Classic.
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“Tony gravitated towards the Ally Blue Onset again and the Ketsch 4, which has a hosel he had used in the past on a blade putter,” Goodwin said. “After going back and forth between the putters, the Ally Blue Onset ultimately matched better to his stroke and delivered the face at impact more consistently. As a result, his start line improved, and he liked the contrast between the white finish of the head and the black sight line, which he found easier to line up with.”
While the Scottsdale Tec version and the PLD Milled version of the Ally Blue Onset are the same shape, they have different optics, alignment features and perhaps most importantly, feels. This new Scottsdale Tec marks the first time Finau hasn’t used a milled putter face.
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PING 2025 PLD Milled SE Ally Blue Onset Custom Putter
The Ping PLD Ally Blue Onset delivers Tour-proven performance with a design that feels natural in the hands of traditionalists. Played on Tour by Corey Conners, this 360-gram putter combines a 304 stainless steel sole plate with a 6061 aluminum top plate, creating a high-MOI profile without the excess weight of oversized mallets.
Unlike trend-driven zero torque or toe-up putters, the Ally Blue Onset features a 15° toe hang, giving golfers a familiar feel with just the right amount of arc in the stroke. This balance helps reduce common pull-side misses while maintaining stability and consistency on the greens.
TECHNOLOGY
Machined 6061 aluminum top with 304 stainless steel sole plate
15° toe down to achieve a slight arc
Deep milled for slightly softer feel
Single alignment line
Black anodized finish
Onset shaft to help alignment
However, the putters sounded the same to him, so he didn’t mind the softer feel of the insert.
In his opening round Thursday, Finau gained .611 strokes on the greens, despite shooting a two-over 73.
Check this out
This section is dedicated to one cool photo we’ve snapped recently on Tour, but haven’t had a reason to share yet. For this week, check out Tony Finau’s Nike Vapor Fly Pro 3-iron.
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Brooks Koepka isn’t the only player with this club still in the bag.
Jack Hirsh/GOLF
Odds and Ends
Some other gear changes and notes we’re tracking this week.
Brooks Koepka led all gear news this week with his switch to a TaylorMade Spider Tour X L-neck putter. He missed the cut and lost more than 3.3 strokes putting. He did improve to gain nearly .3 strokes putting in the second round … Collin Morikawa also changed to a Spider Tour X, but with a flow neck … Jordan Spieth switched to the new Titleist SM11 wedgesand a GT2 hybrid, replacing his longtime TSi2 … Marco Penge moved back to a Scotty Cameron Newport Tour Prototype and switched to SM11s … Sam Burns also added SM11s along with Tony Finau (just 60), Michael Kim, Bud Cauley, and Eric Cole … Aldrich Potgieter traded his Scotty Cameron 009M gamer for a new Fastback 2 Tour prototype … Chris Kirk added a Quantum Triple Diamond, keeping up momentum for Callaway staff conversions … Justin Rose’s putter last week at the Farmers was actually a backup after his gamer was damaged beyond repair.
3 things you should read/watch
A selection of GOLF content from the past week that may interest you.
The best players in the world, like 2025 champion in Augusta and career Grand Slam winner Rory McIlroy and Collin Morikawa have already made the switch to the fastest ever TP5. It’s time for you to make the switch, too.
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Philadelphia Eagles general manager Howie Roseman was faced with many questions about wideout AJ Brown from the local media at the league meetings on Sunday. Brown has been linked with a trade away from Philly this offseason, after a frustrating 2025 season with the team.
However, Roseman opted to offer a blunt response regarding Brown amid the ongoing trade speculation around the wide receiver.
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“I understand that there’s interest in the A.J. Brown story. I, unfortunately, don’t have a home under a rock,” Roseman said. “But my answer to any question on A.J. Brown is A.J. Brown is a member of the Eagles. From my perspective, anything you ask me about A.J. Brown, I’m going to go right back to that answer. But I understand the interest. I put on the TV, and I see that there’s interest, but my answer is A.J. Brown is a member of the Philadelphia Eagles.”
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The Eagles acquired Brown via a trade with the Tennessee Titans in the 2022 offseason. He helped Philly reach two Super Bowls, winning one in 2025.
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It remains to be seen if Brown will remain with the Eagles next season.
Howie Roseman’s Eagles will have No. 23 pick in 2026 NFL draft
Philadelphia Eagles GM Howie Roseman – Source: Imagn
Howie Roseman’s Philly won the NFC East crown last season. However, the Eagles crashed out of the playoffs with a loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the wild-card round.
Philly has the No. 23 pick in Round 1 of the 2026 NFL draft. Some draft experts have suggested that the Eagles might want to bolster their offensive line with their first selection this year.
Former Pakistan cricket team skipper Rashid Latif believe that ball-tampering scandal in the ongoing Pakistan Super League (PSL) was created just to ‘grab headlines’. The incident took place during the match between Lahore Qalandars and Karachi Kings when the on-field umpire Faisal Afridi took the ball from Haris Rauf for inspection after it exchanged hands between Shaheen Afridi and Fakhar Zaman. Faisal had a long conversation with his fellow umpire Sharfuddoula and decided to call for a replacement ball. The umpires were of the opinion that the ball was tampered with and things got worse when Shaheen struggled to provide a clear answer when asked by Pakistan great Ramiz Raja during the post-match presentation ceremony.
In a video on YouTube, Latif claimed that sometimes controversies are created in order to make competitions popular and added that with the ball-tampering row gaining traction, PSL will be dominating the headlines.
“I don’t want to talk about ball tampering. Otherwise I will have to talk about my playing days as it will be unfair to just talk about the current players. If any film is coming out and you know that it will be flop, it is made into a controversy. Like they did with The Hundred when they said that no Pakistan player will be playing. No one knew The Hundred before that. Now there is a controversy in PSL and it will become headlines. This news will not be relevant for more than 24 hours,” he said.
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Fakhar Zaman, pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi and Zimbabwe’s Sikandar Raza have denied ball-tampering charges, stemming from the Pakistan Super League match between Lahore Qalandars and Karachi Kings at the Gaddafi Stadium.
The 35-year-old Zaman was charged on Sunday night by match referee Roshan Mahanama with a Level 3 offence under Article 2.14 of the PSL Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel.
Zaman was found to have violated Article 41.3 of the PSL playing conditions, which prohibits any action that alters the condition of the ball.
Appearing before the former Sri Lankan cricketer, Zaman denied the charges against him.
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The charge relates to an incident just before the final over of the Karachi Kings’ innings, when they needed 14 runs to win.
Zaman was seen in discussion with Haris Rauf and Qalandars’ captain Afridi before the over.
Shortly thereafter, umpire Faisal Afridi requested the ball and, after inspecting it with his colleague, determined that its condition had been altered.
The match referee is expected to hold another hearing within the next 48 hours before delivering a verdict.
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The umpires penalised Qalandars five runs for altering the condition of the ball and subsequently replaced it. This left Karachi Kings needing nine runs in the final over, which they successfully chased down.
When Caroline Dubois defends her world title on Sunday at Olympia, she will be edging closer to the finish line in a packed race to become the No 1 female boxer in the world.
Harper has been in 10 world title fights at four weights in the last six years, and she enters Sunday’s fight as the WBO lightweight champion. She has held world titles at super-featherweight and super-welterweight – two weights separated by 24lb – since giving up her job as a potato peeler in a local chippie.
Dubois is unbeaten in 13 fights, and she has set her sights on becoming undisputed at lightweight and then moving up through the weights – or waiting for a fight with the leading American, Alycia Baumgardner. Dubois is in an elite group chasing the elusive title of women’s No 1, which is currently held by Katie Taylor, who is planning a farewell fight later this year in Dublin.
“She is certainly a good talker,” said Harper when the pair came face to face recently.
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Last December, Dubois switched promoters and signed a deal with Most Valuable Promotions (MVP), the American company run by Jake Paul and his business partner, Nakisa Bidarian. The Sunday show at Olympia is MVP’s first in Britain and marks Sky Sports’s return to boxing in a valuable and necessary partnership. The Olympia card features eight female fights, four for world titles.
Harper and Dubois could be the start of a series of all-British fights, the type that the women’s sport needs; genuine rivalries are essential. It should, in theory, be easier in women’s boxing to make big fights happen, because so many of the boxers have been prepared to move across the weights with an ease that is lacking in the men’s business.
Also on Sunday at Olympia, Chantelle Cameron, who beat Taylor in 2023, moves up two weights to fight for the vacant WBO super-welterweight title.
Chantelle Cameron (right) traded wins with Katie Taylor in 2023 (Peter Morrison/AP)
She would, if the fight was available, move down for a sensible and lucrative domestic fight at a lower weight. Bidarian has made it clear in the past that being part of MVP doesn’t exclude or protect a fighter from meeting other MVP boxers in risky fights.
Harper and Dubois are both part of the MVP business, and that has helped make the fight happen. It had been talked about for a couple of years, and too often in the modern boxing business there have been rivalries that never led to fights, due to separate rivalries between promoters and broadcasters. This has shifted slightly during the last two years with the increased involvement and influence of the Saudi Arabian boxing enterprise and their cash.
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Nakisa Bidarian (left) with Ellie Scotney ahead of Sunday’s Sky Sports show (Mark Robinson MVP)
It is an extraordinary weekend for women’s boxing, on which Dubois will be one of six British women in five world-title fights; the five bouts will involve a total of 11 world championship belts.
On Saturday night in Cardiff, Lauren Price defends her three welterweight belts live on the BBC. On the same Olympia bill as Dubois, and from the same gym in east London, Ellie Scotney will try and add the WBA belt to the three she owns and become the undisputed champion at super-bantamweight. It is the comeback women’s boxing needed.
Lazraq-Khlass, 26, competed at the 2024 Olympics in Paris and finished 16th in the heptathlon.
The AIU website states that a provisional suspension means that an athlete cannot take part “in any competition or activity in athletics prior to a final decision at a hearing conducted under the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules or the Integrity Code of Conduct”.
In a recent case, former world 100m champion Fred Kerley, of America, was banned for two years for anti-doping whereabouts failures.
Europe’s youngest nation, Kosovo, stands on the brink of an historic achievement: a potential spot in the World Cup finals for the first time.
This marks a stark contrast to the 1990s, when football was banned under Serbian rule, forcing private games and players to wash in rivers or melted snow after matches.
Independent from Serbia since 2008 and only sanctioned to join world football in 2016, Kosovo will host Turkey in a decisive play-off on Tuesday.
Following a thrilling 4-3 victory over Slovakia last week, the winner will secure a place in the North American tournament this June.
Eroll Salihu, former secretary general of Kosovo’s federation, described the potential qualification as “historic, truly epochal.”
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Kosovo will face Turkey for a place at the World Cup on Tuesday (AFP via Getty Images)
He added: “This would be the realisation of a dream, for the generations who played in muddy fields and meadows to defend the honour and spirit of the sport.”
For a nation of 1.6 million, Kosovo’s football journey has been one of resilience. They lost nine of 10 games in their 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign.
Fortunes shifted when the federation began recruiting from its diaspora. This campaign has seen positive results, including victories over Sweden and Slovenia, securing their play-off spot.
Every match holds profound significance for a conflict-scarred country. Kosovo’s fight for independence, secured by a NATO air campaign in 1999, claimed over 13,000 lives.
Samir Ujkani, Kosovo’s first captain and goalkeeper, who moved to Belgium as a child, emphasised this duty: “People have suffered here, each of us has lost many family members. It is our duty to come back here and represent our country.”
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Excitement is reaching fever pitch across Kosovo. The national stadium, holding just 12,500 people – a fifth of many World Cup venues – saw tickets for Tuesday’s game sell out within minutes.
Now resold on the black market for up to 20 times their price, towns plan big screens in main squares for those unable to attend.
Adding to the high stakes, Kosovo’s government has pledged a bonus of one million euros (£850,000) should the team emerge victorious.
Jul 19, 2019; Miami Beach, FL, USA; A general view of custom PlayStation controllers sold by a vender during the Call of Duty League Finals e-sports event at Miami Beach Convention Center. Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-Imagn Images
For more than an hour, it appeared as if Team Yandex would get its revenge on Tundra Esports in the best way possible.
Then the clock struck midnight.
Despite dropping the first map and needing more than an hour to survive the second, Tundra beat Yandex 3-1 Sunday to win the ESL One Birmingham event in England.
The win came a day after Tundra swept Yandex 2-0 in the upper-bracket final to advance to the grand final and force Yandex into a do-or-die lower-bracket final to begin Sunday.
The $1 million Dota 2 tournament, featuring 16 teams, awarded $750,000 in prize money and $250,000 in club rewards as well as 35,460 ESL Pro Tour points spread among all participants.
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The competition, part of DreamHack Birmingham, began with a group stage, with teams split into two groups of eight. The top two teams from each group advanced to the upper bracket of the playoffs. The third- and fourth-place teams were delegated to the lower-bracket playoffs, with the remaining eight teams eliminated.
Yandex began the day with a 2-1 win over Xtreme Gaming in that lower-bracket final. Yandex took the first map in 41 minutes, dropped the second in 34 minutes, then took the winner-take-all third map in 34 minutes. Yandex was on red all three maps.
Ilya “CHIRA_JUNIOR” Chirtsov of Russia paced Yandex with a 26/15/29 kill/death/assist ratio in the win. China’s Wang “Ame” Chunyu posted a 22/12/22 K/D/A in the loss.
In the grand final, Yandex continued the momentum with a 41-minute on green. In the next map, Tundra and Yandex battled for more than an hour before Tundra emerged with a 62-minute win on green. The next two maps combined barely lasted longer than the second map, with Tundra taking the third in 38 minutes on red and 28 minutes on green to take the match and the title.
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After a quiet first map, Bozhidar “bzm” Bogdanov of Bulgaria led Tundra in kills in each of the victorious maps, finishing with a 46/15/53 K/D/A.
Alimzhan “watson” Islambekov of Kazakhstan posted a 37/16/32 to lead Yandex in defeat.
ESL One Birmingham final standings / prize pool (prize money, club reward)
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1. $250,000, $40,000 — Tundra Esports
2. $100,000, $30,000 — Team Yandex
3. $80,000, $25,000 — Xtreme Gaming
4. $60,000, $20,000 — PARIVISION
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5-6. $40,000, $15,000 — Team Spirit, Aurora Gaming
Wardley currently holds the WBO belt and has shown he is willing to take on anyone by accepting the hard-hitting Daniel Dubois as his first challenger.
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Speaking on the DAZN broadcast post-fight, Wardley was again asked about a potential clash with Itauma.
“Right now, we’re in different places. That is an emphatic victory, he deserves all the credit in the world because Franklin is a tough opponent and no one’s done that to him. I know first hand Moses has all the talent in the world.
“But we are in different places. He’s looking towards where I am currently as world champion. I’m looking at Oleksandr Usyk, Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua. I’m looking higher than that still. There is a gap of separation where we’re at, and that’s only due to time and experience.”
The Ipswich man then outlined the only scenario in which the fight would become a ‘serious conversation.’
“Look, there’s four belts, there’s two of us. The only time this ever becomes a serious conversation is if I have two and he has two, and we have to look around and go, ‘what are we gonna do here?’ Are we gonna do a Klitschko where we just hold on to them, do our defences and hold down the gym with all four belts in there?”
Pushed on what his thinking would be should things play out that way, Wardley admitted that the carrot of undisputed dangling would be hard to turn down.
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“I would always want to be undisputed … The title of undisputed is something that I’m sure Moses himself will want to claim at some point and something I want to claim. Like I said, that’s the only time there would be a serious question, but it’s in the distant, distant future right now.”
As it stands, the division offers plenty of match-ups without splitting Ben Davison’s gym and forcing either Wardley or Itauma to seek another trainer. The intrigue from fans, however, only seems to be intensifying, and an expected order from the WBO to install Itauma as mandatory challenger – should Wardley keep his belt against Dubois in May – makes the situation a little more complicated.
France’s football team comes back from the US with two victories under its belt. Warm-up matches against Brazil and Colombia allowed the players to get used to the terrain ahead of the 2026 World Cup. Trainer Didier Deschamps was able to see his team in action, and work out any adjustments needed, before they compete. The final line-up is set to be revealed by Deschamps on May 14th.
Devin Haney is back in the market for his next opponent.
The three-division world champion moved up to the welterweight ranks in November of last year, dropping and outpointing Brian Norman Jr to win the WBO belt.
There are several options for ‘The Dream’ at 147lbs, including three potential unification fights. Lewis Crocker holds the IBF belt, Rolando Romero the WBA and Ryan Garcia the WBC.
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A rematch between Haney and Garcia following their controversial 2023 fight – overturned from a Garcia win to a no contest after a failed doping test – would be the preferred option for fans, but Haney had instead been in talks to face ‘Rolly’ Romero.
Romero beat Garcia last year to win the WBA Regular strap and was subsequently elevated to full champion when Jaron Ennis vacated to move up in weight. He has a mandatory challenger in Shakhram Giyasov, though appeared close to securing a two-belt bout with Haney for May in Las Vegas.
“Rolly [is] delusional acting like he some kind of draw but can’t sell out a ballroom. Thats why the fight hasn’t been made yet. The money isn’t right. I’m looking at other options he can go fight his mandatory since he’s such a draw.”
Whether or not negotiations with Romero can be salvaged remains to be seen, but this development opens the door to the Garcia rematch, and the latter’s promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, has said he is very keen to make that happen next.
;)
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