Wednesday, April 17th
Another day, Ryan Garcia reappeared, but did nothing to encourage those expecting him to win Saturday's fight with Devin Haney.
Both fighters spoke and trained for the media separately at Brooklyn's famous Gleason's Gym.
After the two faced each other at the Empire State Building on Tuesday and Haney shoved Garcia, Garcia's promoter Oscar De La Hoya has since said that Haney is “upset” and that it has been 12 months. He said he had never seen such an attitude before. Before that, Haney also continued his impressively disciplined performance by pushing Vasily Lomachenko away at the weigh-in for their undisputed lightweight title fight. They were scheduled to throw out the first pitch at Citi Field before the Mets played the Pirates.
Those around Garcia said he threw warm-up pitches, met with various Mets players and told them “it's all over.” [was] Things are going well.'' Mets security was reportedly concerned about the incident earlier in the day and canceled it, fearing another altercation on the field.
At Gleason's, De La Hoya said succinctly about the development: “I think this was a safety issue. It's a shame because Ryan and Haney were looking forward to it. We're all Yankees fans anyway…”
But the cancellation, and Garcia's increasingly vocal response to it, arguably left a bigger impression than if he had thrown out the first pitch as scheduled. Those working to promote Saturday's fight will likely recognize its value – especially given their growing guilt of disregarding their duty of care to Garcia.
On Friday, we again saw Garcia looking too heavy to be a healthy super lightweight — and yet he looked lean — BoxingScene happened to be at Gleason's venue and the world He spoke with a leading matchmaker, who said Garcia appeared to be overweight. 150 lbs. “There's nothing to worry about, he's going to make weight,” said De La Hoya, who is also the promoter for Saturday's fight.
Coincidentally, after one of De La Hoya's most decorated careers, a career in which he struggled to move up to welterweight and ended his career with his worst performance, getting stopped by the great Manny Pacquiao in his last fight in 2008, De La Hoya is back in action. I hope that you will. I am a senior judge.
As on Tuesday, Garcia was once again consistently topless, indicating that he is not attempting to gradually gain weight by wearing multiple layers, the approach favored by many other professional fighters. Also, as he did Tuesday, trainer Derrick James, who has a duty of care to Garcia like De La Hoya and Golden Boy, also declined to speak. BoxingScene had heard that he turned down one interview request because he could not address the rumors surrounding his relationship with Errol Spence, so when giving another interview, it was a fight this weekend and Spence He emphasized that BoxingScene wanted to discuss this. Again he refused (cynics may wonder if there is a determination to avoid discussing De La Hoya's mental health, a fighter also described as a “cash cow”).
Despite once again finding himself in difficult circumstances, Garcia displayed warmth throughout, spending time at Gleason's signing gloves and memorabilia for young amateur fighters before attending to his media obligations. Because he is one of the most high-profile martial artists in the world, he is likely to encounter people who demand his attention much more than others. De La Hoya can relate. Haney probably wouldn't do that, but he was admirably graceful and human throughout.
Perhaps it's the human side of him – exposing his vulnerabilities, surrounding himself with the insecurities he knows he's experienced before, most notably in his loss to Gervonta “Tank” Davis last year. He went on to say the following: He was going to lose — which contributed greatly to his popularity.
He again appears most distracted, restless, and mentally overactive. Shortly after he described himself as “a little mentally ill” he said: You all respect him now. So you have to respect me. I saw something I should never have seen, and now I'm a murderer. ”
He remains foul-mouthed in a way that he wasn't when he cut out looking pretty cool and definitely trying to make weight for the fight with Davis; He consistently recants his statements, especially the unwise ones.
“There are no results. [if I miss making weight],” he said. “If you want, I'll miss that shit. It's my event.
“I'm just kidding. Brother, I'll weigh you. It's easy.
“I know I’m going to win, brother.
“You can't even play table tennis if you're dehydrated, let alone compete in front of millions of people. Fact.”
He also made a “joke” about making it legal for fighters to smoke marijuana and blamed acting for his headspace. Before that, he did his best impression of Al Pacino as Tony Montana in Scarface, yelling, “Say hello to my boy.” “friend”. Due to the same hyperactivity, he repeatedly punched the air in front of him while speaking, and while describing his “acting”, he took off his hat, threw it into the air to be caught, and then did not succeed or care that they failed. Because he had already moved on to the next thought, the next thing he wanted to say.
De La Hoya described Garcia as a “money tree” and compared his main fighter to Tiger Woods. Great Woods' undignified and public collapse in 2024 is widely publicized, but it was almost inevitable because by the time he sought salvation from himself, it was already too late. Even if it's too late to avoid a fight where Garcia is expected to get hit to the head multiple times, at least he can hope he doesn't end up in danger of taking a serious fall.
