BN Preview: Haney and Garcia are actually going ahead with it

By Elliot Worsell

THE beauty of writing previews earlier than the arrival of social media and the push for boxers to tell you of their each thought and transfer was this: one’s focus and body of reference tended to be slender, particular. You targeted not on what a boxer had posted on-line when bored, crying for assist, or craving validation, however as an alternative their combating type and what they did within the ring. You handled them, to some extent, as outlines, somewhat than, say, flawed human beings; flawed human beings whose flaws are made all of the extra apparent by a social media habit.

In the case of Ryan Garcia, maybe the case, it is difficult to now separate the boxer from the broken younger man. For instance, on the time of me penning this, the preview of his subsequent struggle, he was busy posting the next on social media: “I actually get excited when people say I’m crazy.”

That, when considered with out context, could possibly be mistaken for a throwaway remark written by any 13-year-old lady fed up at college and in want of somebody to inform her that she is particular. However, given what we find out about Garcia, and on condition that we’ve got for the previous couple of months needed to endure his numerous conspiracy theories and cries for assist, it is difficult to not think about such feedback as both (a) one more warning signal or (b) considerably annoying.

How you in the end select to interpret Garcia’s behaviour will depend upon whether or not you imagine he’s a younger man combating private demons or as an alternative so determined for consideration he’ll cease at nothing to get it. Some, upon studying his phrases and watching his movies, will specific concern, whereas others will really feel that to disregard him is in the long run one of the best coverage.

Devin Haney, Garcia’s subsequent opponent, has seemingly all the time recognized Garcia’s motive. He, with an eye-roll and shrug, has stated from the very outset that Garcia has simply been attempting to trigger chaos and create consideration the one approach he is aware of how. Haney can see nothing else, actually, and has not one of the sympathy others prolonged to Garcia when first getting wind of his points.

Perhaps, as his opponent, Haney should suppose this manner; providing no mercy, ignoring the human within the boxer he plans to defeat. Or maybe, like so many, Haney sees in Garcia a person whose quirks – to place it mildly – are no totally different from these of numerous different boxers all through historical past, solely at present, due to social media, are uncovered for the world to see and, worse, and much more cynically, exploited by each the boxer himself and these round him as promotional instruments.

Either approach, your entire buildup to this occasion in Brooklyn has been unsettling; unorthodox; improper. If Garcia, for example, is as remotely unstable as it would seem from his on-line shows of attention-seeking, he ought to be nowhere close to a boxing ring this Saturday (April 20). Equally, if it’s all some weird ruse, or an try and trigger controversy as a result of he is aware of that’s what his viewers wishes, each Garcia and the folks round him have actually let themselves and the game down.

Save for Garcia now pulling out, or pulling an Oliver McCall/Andrew Golota-style meltdown on struggle night time, we’ll seemingly by no means know. But there could be little question that the buildup to this struggle – particularly Garcia’s erratic behaviour – has overshadowed what was, when initially introduced, an intriguing battle between two younger super-lightweights. Indeed, it has completed nothing to assist followers – and, extra importantly, Haney – really feel assured that this struggle will even happen on Saturday. (Frankly, on the time of penning this, and having beforehand written previews for fights that by no means occurred, I’m nonetheless undecided whether or not we are going to see Haney and Garcia share a hoop this weekend.)

Still, as powerful as it is, we should attempt to refocus and view Haney and Garcia as purely boxers. We should overlook what Garcia has revealed, each about himself and different folks, and we should see him and Haney as two tremendous athletes in a hoop – orthodox, coiled – somewhat than flawed younger males. Only then can we get a correct learn on this struggle and return to the purity of previews of previous; when, considerably refreshingly, it was about simply the 2 boxers and the struggle to come back; when there was a thriller to it all, one which didn’t essentially starve you of data however as an alternative helped you focus extra on what’s vital: the 2 protagonists.

Here, with Haney and Garcia, there may be a lot to each analyse and admire. For one, they are of their athletic prime, each aged 25. They are assembly on the proper time, not too quickly and not too late, and regardless of each being younger they’ve lately collected an honest quantity of expertise on the prime degree. Haney, for instance, has gone the 12-round distance in every of his final eight fights and has throughout this era overwhelmed Vasiliy Lomachenko, Regis Prograis, George Kambosos (twice), Jorge Linares, Joseph Diaz, and Yuriorkis Gamboa. Garcia, in the meantime, has been successful fights at a degree beneath this, but was concerned in a giant one in opposition to Gervonta Davis, which passed off in 2023, and has, to his credit score, efficiently rebounded from the defeat he suffered that night time.

In brief, we all know rather a lot about each fighters, regardless of them being solely 25 – an age one sometimes associates with an untested prospect lately. Haney can do the 12 rounds in his sleep, and has outclassed some superb males over this distance, whereas Garcia, one would assume, is now liberated for having misplaced his unbeaten document and could have discovered numerous classes in that defeat to Davis final 12 months.

In phrases of confidence, Garcia’s eighth-round stoppage of Oscar Duarte in December could have completed him the world of excellent, too. That was the primary and solely struggle he has had since dropping in opposition to Davis – stopped within the seventh spherical by a physique shot – and beating Duarte within the method by which he did, when weighing 143 kilos, was exactly what the physician ordered. New weight, and new perspective, the expectation following this struggle was that Garcia, 24-1 (20), would now begin afresh as a super-lightweight and that he would current a extra mature and considerate model of himself, the results of having been humbled by Davis, at light-weight, the earlier April.

Instead, the brand new Garcia with which the world has been lumbered is sort of totally different from the one we anticipated. If something, somewhat than mature, Garcia has up to now 4 months proven an immaturity most regarding and had many pleading for somebody to intervene and assist him. That hardly bodes effectively when approaching a struggle in opposition to a fighter as well-oiled as Devin Haney, but it is true nonetheless. To some, actually, the actions of Garcia up to now few months are extra telling and revealing than something he managed in the course of the eight rounds he spent dominating Duarte in December.

Ryan Garcia

As for Haney, in distinction to Garcia, regular is the phrase. He is regular each time he seems within the ring, typically controlling opponents and doing with and to them no matter he needs, and he’s regular outdoors the ring, too; the place Haney, 31-0 (15), has solely ever appeared the mannequin skilled. Indeed, the only knock in opposition to Haney, the WBC super-lightweight champion, is to say that typically he’s somewhat too regular and somewhat too secure. Meaning: whereas somebody like Garcia is all emotion, chaos and drama, which produces fairly the cocktail within the ring, Haney is a peppermint tea of a fighter. He is dependable, assured and, for the purists, exactly what they need to sip earlier than going to mattress. There are, for these folks, therapeutic properties in watching somebody like Haney. Even simply his jab, a punch he throws in addition to anybody, is a factor of actual magnificence; a murals. His management, too, is one thing to behold and respect, particularly given the run of choice wins he has had and the stress for him to buck this pattern and prioritise the bloodlust of followers.

In that respect, an opponent like Garcia might be supreme for Haney. As seen already, Garcia is glad to do the majority of the speaking and the promoting and this leaves Haney, the craftsman, capable of work laborious and focus solely on what he does greatest on struggle night time. In reality, one might argue that Haney, he of eight straight choice wins, wants opponents like Garcia simply to strike up curiosity in his fights, not too dissimilar to how Floyd Mayweather wanted an ideal foil or two throughout his lengthy reign as champion. Mayweather, you see, was additionally somebody accustomed to going 12 rounds and, though a tad extra thrilling than Haney, he too got here to depend on the presence of stars like Arturo Gatti and Oscar De La Hoya to drum up curiosity in his fights and elevate his profile to the following degree.

With Ryan Garcia, Haney can be anticipating the identical. He can even expect to make use of Garcia’s emotion and instability in opposition to him and perhaps within the course of break him down and get his first stoppage win since 2019. That, when bearing in mind the whole lot we’ve got seen from Garcia these previous few months, appears an inevitable conclusion to this struggle, for there can absolutely be no worse boxer to face, if struggling mentally, than somebody like Devin Haney; somebody whose very steadiness and consistency is a merciless reminder of the whole lot Ryan Garcia at present lacks.