American boxer Devin Haney has insisted he 'absolutely rejects discrimination of any kind' after controversially saying he would 'never lose to a white boy'.

The 21 year-old was crowned WBC World Lightweight champion towards the end of 2019 before being put into recess due to an injury.

And while conducting a live video stream with 78SPORTSTV, Haney responded to questions about how a fight between himself and Ukrainian Vasyl Lomachenko would go.

He said: "I'll tell you this. I will never lose to a white boy in my life. I don't care what nobody got to say.

"Fight a white boy 10 times, I'm going to beat him 10 times."

Following his comments, Haney then came out to defend himself on Saturday by reassuring people he had spoken to the WBC in a bid to clear the air around the situation.

Alongside a picture of Floyd Mayweather and himself, he said: "I'm not racist and I never will be a racist. I'm chasing greatness.

He then added: "I just had a very positive conversation with Mauricio Sulaiman, president of the WBC, and confirmed to him directly my commitment to be a role model and my absolute rejection of discrimination of any kind."

Fellow lightweight champion Ryan Garcia, who has exchanged words with Haney before, was not impressed by his rival's statement, but did say he didn't believe it was intended to be racist.

"We should all respect every one from every race and see who the best man is!," he said.

"I respect Devin Haney and I believe he didn’t mean this with racist intent, but let’s all respect each other for the love of the sport."

Haney currently holds a perfect professional record of 24 victories from 24 professional fights.

His last contest came back in November in Los Angeles on the undercard of KSI v Logan Paul where he defeated Alfredo Santiago by unanimous decision.