On April 20th, 2024, Golden Boy Promotions held a card that was headlined by a super fight, Devin Haney vs Ryan Garcia. Haney was the WBC Super Lightweight Champion coming into the fight, and that title was supposed to be on the line. Garcia ended up winning the fight via majority decision, however, because he missed weight by three pounds, he did not become the new Super Lightweight Champion and the belt remained with Haney.
Ryan ended up decisively winning the fight, but with him missing weight at Super Lightweight, is it time for him to move up? Or, considering his recent drama with a certain UFC Champion, should he move into crossover boxing for what could be a fight of the century?
Haney vs Garcia
Ryan Garcia defeated Devin Haney in their 12-round fight, winning by majority decision. He landed three knockdowns on the former undefeated boxer and won in absolutely dominating faction. Many fans believed that it was a clear unanimous decision victory for King Ryan, regardless he walked away with the victory. The bout was looked at as controversial because the referee “saved” Haney on multiple occasions, stopping potentially even more knockdowns in the fight.
This win clearly makes Ryan a bigger threat in the sport than he previously was, especially because people were considering him the underdog coming into the fight. His loss against Gervonta “Tank” Davis showed that he didn’t have the greatest chin, however, it seems like Garcia at a bigger weight was a completely different fighter.
Garcia to Welterweight
Ryan Garcia has made it official, his next fight will be in the welterweight division. In the weigh-in for the Haney fight, Ryan was three pounds overweight, and it’s clear that he has become oversized for that weight class. Despite him only having two fights at super lightweight, it seems like at his size he’s definitely more fit for 147 pound division at this point in his career than 140. He has already been placed on the rankings and is currently ranked #3 as a welterweight.
With Ryan’s move to Welterweight, he’ll be entering one of the toughest divisions in boxing. The current WBC, WBA, and WBO Welterweight Champion, Terrence “Bud” Crawford, is undefeated with a record of 40-0 and is currently ranked #1 as the best pound-for-pound boxer across all weight classes. However, Ryan won’t have to worry about Bud as he will be moving up to 154 pounds, potentially vacating the Welterweight belts if he wins the WBO Super Middleweight championship.
Another top name in that division is current IBF Welterweight Champion, Jaron “Boots” Ennis. Boots is another undefeated boxer who has taken the boxing world by storm, and many expect to see him take over as the king of that division with Terrence “Bud” Crawford moving up to 154.
With that fight potentially going down, it could be possible to see Garcia take on 28-1 Errol Spence Jr. Spence had been undefeated throughout his career up until July of 2023, where he took a TKO loss to Terrence Crawford in a fight where he was simply unmatched.
Garcia vs O’Malley?
There is a huge chance that Ryan Garcia also step into the crossover boxing world, as he and current UFC Bantamweight Champion Sean O’Malley have been exchanging words back and forth. There have been talks to not only have a boxing fight but to also have an MMA bout between the two.
Ryan has claimed that he could beat O’Malley in MMA, and Sean has also claimed that he could beat Ryan in boxing, so it’s definitely going to be exciting to see if anything would come out of this. Their problems escalated after O’Malley had claimed that Ryan was abusing drugs in the leadup to his fight against Haney. Immediately after Haney vs Garcia, Sean also took to social media to make fun of the fight.
This fight could be very possible with Sean potentially moving up to 145 in the UFC, meaning they’d both be fighting around similar weight. It’s highly unlikely, though, that this potential fight would be an MMA fight and not a boxing fight, and it would make much more sense for these two to meet in a ring and not the Octagon.
About The Author
Shayan Malik has always been an avid fan of sports. He is currently studying sports communication, as he is hoping to take his sports knowledge to the next level. He enjoys writing about combat sports such as MMA and Pro Wrestling, as well as Boxing.
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