Three pounds and change. Garcia triumphs over Haney.

The three pounds an effervescent Ryan Garcia elected not to shed in advance of his seismic victory over Devin Haney at the Barclays Center in down town Brooklyn last Saturday, or, if you prefer, the three pounds that proved beyond the chisels of his dedicated sculptors, dependent on the narrative most pliable to your viewpoint, could seem entirely trivial to the casual observer.

It is, when all said and done, just 2.14% beyond the contracted 140 pound Junior Welterweight limit.

Whilst it would be convenient to dismiss the significance of the three pounds and change, nobody wants a boxing superhero with an asterisks besides their name, to omit their impact in any analysis of Garcia’s upset win does a disservice to Haney, the sport and fails to recognise the advantage boxing’s newest enfant terrible sought.

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April 24, 2024 0

Don’t call it a comeback. Garcia faces Duarte on return

Article first appeared on gambling.com

Describing the first fight after the loss of a pristine record as a ‘comeback’ is problematic but nevertheless commonplace. It is one of the many tenants of the modern cult of the unbeaten fighter. An ideology with far fewer followers in bygone eras when activity was king.

Ryan Garcia, 23-1 (19ko), is the latest to find himself cast in role of the comeback kid. His matinee idol good looks, fast hands and a flair for social media launched the now 25-year-old into PPV level fights at an early age. His last fight, a loss to Gervonta Davis, LKO7, in which Garcia was knocked down twice, was a gargantuan feature bought by more than 1.2 million households in the US. The fight grossed in excess of $100 million in gate and broadcast revenue alone.

The ‘star’ was the match-up, but Garcia proved his own box office potential.

No surprise then that leading bookmakers all offer markets for his return against Oscar Duarte and favour Garcia strongly, 1/4 with UNIBET the best available on the Outright Win, but he isn’t quite the overwhelming favourite he would’ve been before that defeat. The inevitable question, how has Garcia digested defeat, is an intangible in predicting the outcome. Only the isolation of the ring in the Toyota Centre, Houston on Saturday night can now provide the answer.

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December 2, 2023 0

GERVONTA DAVIS VS. RYAN GARCIA – FIGHT NIGHT PREVIEW

First published at Bookmakers.com

There are still fights in boxing that draw the attention of general sports fans. Full stadiums and multiple broadcast partners illustrate boxing’s enduring attraction. Certain fighters continue to transcend that boundary between the ardent follower and the casual. Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and Anthony Joshua are two giants of the boxing sphere who have generated extraordinary interest and built global brands that reach far beyond the limits of the sport in which they excel.

Boxing can still create superstars and while they have both fought a range of distinguished opponents, the need to box the toughest opponents isn’t as insistent as it once was, and far too many necessary fights remain stubbornly unmade.

It is a truth that makes this weekend’s clash between Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis and ‘King’ Ryan Garcia at the T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas, especially appealing to fight fans and will, by the weekend, thanks to an intense media slog to which Garcia appears born, become a must see for general sports fans too.

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April 19, 2023 0

Lomachenko and Crolla depart, destinations undefined

As Anthony Crolla pawed for consciousness, his right cheek stuck to the floor like a kid looking beneath the sofa for a lost Lego piece, those who scoffed at the legitimacy of his challenge to Vasily Lomachenko unholstered their weapons and got to work.

I’m sure, as the smiling Mancunian drew himself back up from the dark seabed the dazzling Ukrainian’s final temple shot had plunged him too, his first thought wasn’t about the men who should’ve been in his corner. In to who’s stead he had stepped. Continue reading “Lomachenko and Crolla depart, destinations undefined” →

April 13, 2019 1

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t; Davis to face Hugo Ruiz

In 2019, the weed of cynicism is so thickly entwined in much of what we say, read and hear that our collective consciousness is being starved of the sunshine of positivity. Clouding our days and gnawing at our nights. Social media has proved to be the artificial lighting required to fuel rampant growth of an outlook once the preserve of the few but now the default setting for millions. To stretch the metaphor further, cynicism has its dealers and users and the internet offers them anonymity or infamy, subject to preference, as well as an infinite supply of virtual street corners and under the table shadows in which it can be exchanged.

Omnipresent on every platform in which people congregate, irrigated by sarcasm and often recut and repackaged, to avoid scrutiny, as its more palatable brethren; pragmatism and realism, cynicism is far too established to unroot. In the main, it’s origin is merely disguised jealousy. Espoused by the covetous, by those searching for meaning and popularity they cannot otherwise find and loathing those that have.

Accomplishment, effort, courage, success are met with scorn by eager detractors. Should a fighter stumble or crumble, the misfortune attracts a cackle of anonymous hyenas keen to feast on the schadenfreude of it all.

I know, because, like you, I recognise the behaviour in myself. I am trying to be better. Gervonta Davis is the newest recipient of my new, but often erratically applied, benevolence. Continue reading “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t; Davis to face Hugo Ruiz” →