Many to Blame for Ryan Garcia Coming in Overweight – Mainly the Fighter

April 19, 2024 by admin 159 Comments

The defining scenes of Ryan Garcia preparing for his second shot at a world title by running sprints with a cell phone in his right hand are even more damning than him remaining on his knee following a body shot.

By prioritizing his social media campaign over his chance to be a world champion, Garcia has told us everything we need to know about his interest in boxing.

On Friday, Southern California’s Garcia weighed in a staggering 3.2 pounds over the limit for the WBC 140-pound title fight against champion Devin Haney, a fellow 25-year-old and former amateur rival, meaning that Garcia was left to make good on a news conference handshake deal with Haney and pay him $1.5 million for Saturday’s fight at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center to proceed.

“He’s very unprofessional,” said Haney (31-0, 15 KOs). “I told him [Thursday] his antics will betray him, and this is just the start. [On Saturday], the world will see I’m levels above this average fighter. I’ll end this p***y, get him out of boxing. It’s over.”

With 10.5 million Instagram followers, Garcia’s fame will persist through whatever transpires Saturday night.

But by disrespecting rules and standards he agreed to and trained for over the past two months, he has taken another major step toward becoming one of the sport’s greatest frauds.

As if people didn’t already know the result of the New York State Athletic Commission’s official morning weigh-in, Garcia stepped on the “scale” for the ceremonial version Friday afternoon and took a long swig from what he said was a beer before the emcee announced the number that disqualifies him from the opportunity to win the belt Saturday night.

“I did my best, I put myself through hell,” Garcia explained on stage when asked why he missed weight.

When the crowd jeered, Garcia did himself and a promotion hopeful that his making weight would lead to a rush of ticket buyers flocking to see a title fight at a venue that had, to that point, struggled to reach seating capacity.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, suck my d***k,” Garcia told the fans.

He added that the $1.5 million fine payable to Haney is “light work for me,” and said the beer “was fire.”

So much of this unraveling production lies at Garcia’s feet, but as the ghastly conclusion nears Saturday night, there are so many others accountable who have prioritized live-gate receipts and pay-per-view buys over sporting integrity.

“He’s Ryan. He’s unique. He’s his own person,” promoter Oscar De La Hoya said in an interview with DAZN before the ceremonial weigh-in formally revealed the weight that was already known. “I’m not his babysitter or his manager. I’m his promoter.”

De La Hoya leaked where the ceremony was headed, however, chiding his fighter for maintaining that his training-camp antics and countless, bizarre social media posts were all part of a ploy to fool Haney about his preparedness.

“When Ryan tells me, ‘I’m trolling,’ I’m not sure if we should believe him or not,” De La Hoya said.

De La Hoya, his partner Bernard Hopkins, trainer Derrick James, manager Guadalupe Valencia and Garcia’s parents, Henry and Lisa – all of them have been left to take account of where they are now.

Did they coddle when they should have spoken up? Did they enable when they needed to get in Garcia’s face? Was it worth it?

Should the more gifted Haney, a -800 favorite, dismantle their second-time challenger for all to see on Saturday night, where does that leave Garcia?

De La Hoya tried to fast-forward the spin.

“At this point, I don’t know how important it is for Ryan to win or lose,” said De La Hoya, reminding that Garcia recovered from the image blow of the seventh-round TKO loss to Gervonta Davis to reach this title fight.

De La Hoya said, “if it’s close” in defeat, Garcia can continue to appear in important bouts. “And if he wins, I won’t see him for three months.”

A sound defeat could mean fight fans will be fine letting even more time pass before they need to revisit an act like this.

“If he coughs up a goose egg, boxing is going to write this guy off,” former welterweight champion Shawn Porter said on the DAZN weigh-in stream.

When an analyst said trainer James needs to construct an effective fight plan for the overweight Garcia, former junior middleweight champion Sergio Mora replied, “This is about Ryan Garcia, the man. Can he beat the big dogs?”

Instead of doing so on equal footing, Garcia has taken a shortcut by skipping the same rigors Haney endured to weigh in at the 140-pound limit and more quickly get on his way to rehydrating toward his most comfortable weight possible for fight night.

“These guys rehydrate, like, 20 pounds,” De La Hoya said on DAZN. “But there’s one guy [Garcia]who hits hard and one guy who doesn’t. If Ryan lands one in the first three or four rounds. …”

What, exactly?

He will have won a fight that no longer stands as a world-title event.

And for that, Garcia has no one to blame but himself.

This article was originally published by Boxingscene.com. Read the original article here.