Ryan Garcia missed weight for his fight against Devin Haney, making him ineligible to win Haney’s WBC super lightweight title and owing Haney $1.5 million due to a wager they made, but remains unapologetic, insisting he couldn’t cut any more weight.
Ryan Garcia gets it. He knows his limits.
Friday was a bit of a shocker. Garcia was all over the news. Why? He missed his weight for the fight against Devin Haney, the 140-pound champ. He was 3.2 pounds over. Ouch.
What’s the big deal? Well, he can’t win Haney’s WBC super lightweight title now. The fight’s still on, though.
Remember that bet they made last Thursday at the press conference? Yeah, Garcia now owes Haney a cool $1.5 million. The deal was, if one of them missed weight, they’d pay the other $500,000 per pound over.
Social media’s been brutal. But Garcia? He’s not sorry. Not one bit. He says he couldn’t cut any more weight.
He took to Twitter Spaces. “At the end of the day, my last fight was at 143,” he said. “That’s all my body could get down to. I couldn’t go lower than 143. Not unless I wanted to kill myself. My team can vouch for me. We tried, right? All night, trying to make the weight.”
But he’s not about to die for the scale. “The only thing I’ll sacrifice my life for is for Jesus Christ, not the scale.”
This weigh-in mess? Just the latest weirdness in the Garcia-Haney pre-fight saga. It was supposed to be a clash of young boxing stars. But “King Ryan” has been acting…strange. Ranting on social media, spouting conspiracy theories.
On Friday, he hinted that it’s all part of a plan. “There’s always a different story to be told,” he said. “Every fight you’re going to get something new. I’m not going to act like this again, but I did what I had to do. Once you commit to a plan, if you back out, you’re a b****. I did not back out.”
He didn’t clarify which parts of his behavior were planned, or why. But he agreed with Twitter commentators who said he was selling the fight.
Right now, DraftKings has Garcia as a +600 underdog. He bounced back from his first pro loss with an eighth-round knockout of Oscar Duarte.
The odds for Saturday don’t faze Garcia. He’s ready to trade blows with Haney. “I’d risk everything in that ring,” he said. “I’m fighting for the children. I’m not going to back down, I guarantee you that. Ain’t nothing going to stop me from being ready for the fire.”
He’s ready to meet Haney in the center of the ring. “If he’s dead-ass to meet in the center of the ring, I’ll stand right there the whole time. We can fight inside, outside, whatever he wants, but there’s no way he’s fighting me in the center of the ring. There’s no way.”