“He turns it up in the championship rounds, he’s a great fighter. This fight put me in the history books forever, it means everything to me and my team.”

It was a razor close match-up.

Haney swept the 12th round, according to the judges – had he not, two of the scores would have been 114-114, resulting in a majority draw

Lomachenko (17-3), who has held titles in three weight classes from featherweight to lightweight, kept his head held high in a post-fight interview in the ring, but it was later buried in a towel as he cried backstage, in footage seen on the pay-per-view broadcast.

The 35-year-old – who spent a year defending his country after the Russian invasion in February 2022 – received rapturous cheers from the crowd, who stayed behind to hear him speak.

“I don’t want to talk about this [decision], all people saw what happened today,” he said. “I think I showed I can beat any boxer, now I’m in good shape. See you next time.

“I can’t talk about this right now, it’s just not a comfortable moment for me. Thank you for the people who came to support us.

“Everything was good, in the rules, it was clean. Look, before I thought he would be better. He’s a tough fighter, but he is not pound-for-pound fighter. Right now I want to come back home, support my country.”

Shakur Stevenson could be next for Haney, should the champ decide to stay at 135 pounds – but the 25-year-old American was not impressed with what he saw from ringside.

“Lomachenko should be undisputed champion, he won,” Stevenson said. “He won that fight. He landed the cleaner punches, the cleaner shots, he pushed the pace.

“Let’s make it happen [the fight with Haney] – I think that should happen next. I think Devin’s not at my level, and I’m gonna show it. He’s a tough fighter but there’s a high skill level within me and he’s not on my level.

“Bill [Haney, Devin’s father and coach] called me out on my last fight and now I’m here they ran out of the ring. They just seen me now, they ran out he ring and got a little scared.”

Billy Haney, for his part, shut down any talk of the judges getting it wrong.

“Man is imperfect, but we’re happy with [the decision],” he said on the broadcast backstage. “Devin went through the fire and got Mr Lomachenko, didn’t he? I’m ecstatic, I’m a happy dad.

“I think this cements him even closer to being a pound for pound great in the sport. I don’t see where it would’ve been that close for a rematch. It wasn’t close.”

Commenting on the broadcast, analyst Max Kellerman, and former multiple-weight champions Andre Ward and Timothy Bradley, all disputed talk of a “robbery”.

“I think the idea of a robbery is out there is because Lomachenko won the story of the fight,” Kellerman said. “If Loma had followed up on the 10th and 11th rounds and had a big 12th round, then the cries of robbery would have been more justified.”

“It can go either way – this was a close fight, it wasn’t a robbery,” the 39-year-old American Ward said. “But Loma closed the show. He took the story of the fight back from Haney when it mattered most. Haney had a better 12th round, but this is why people are booing and why they have a problem with the decision.”

“Haney did his job,” American Bradley, 39, said. “He fought as hard as he possibly can. You may think he didn’t get the decision, but the judges sitting ringside feel that he did enough to win the fight. Highway robbery? I don’t think so. We were sitting here calling the fight back and forth, both guys were having their moments.”

Promoter Lou Di Bella said the fight was the hardest he had ever had to score in his career.

“That was a great fight, the fact that it was attached to robbery talk, it just starts to get old after a certain point in time,” Ward added. “[The scorecard of] 16-12 is generous, but if you have a fight 15-13 it can go either way.

“That’s the narrative casual fans will have and it starts to impede on the real narrative of the fight. This is what I said about my fight with [Sergey] Kovalev – 15-13, one round goes the other way, it’s a draw. It’s too close to call.”