Hook, Line and Sinker?
April 20, 2024
By Charles Jay
Could it be that the young man everybody thought needed psychological help pulled off the greatest psychological coup in recent years?
Maybe that’s being more dramatic than necessary when it comes to Ryan Garcia‘s decision win over Devin Haney on Saturday night.
I said “maybe,” because I can’t discount the possibility that such a thing is precisely the case.
It’s not our intention to cover the same theme two days in a row in The Daily Jay. But I feel compelled to remind you that there was a funny feeling on this end that Garcia’s erratic behavior was kind of a ruse; an attempt to get Haney relaxed and overconfident.
That’s what may have happened; I don’t think Haney would so readily admit that if it were true. I don’t think he would admit to the media that he thought Garcia was so out of sorts that it was going to be a cakewalk.
It was no cakewalk, that’s for certain. Not when Haney had to get off the deck not once, not twice, but three times.
Even though I felt unequivocally that Haney was the better fighter, I could not go all-in with him because I had these reservations. That’s why my play in WagerWAR was on an “over.” When the favorite has gone the full distance eight straight times, I wasn’t exactly bucking a trend.
If Garcia had lost to Haney, and worse yet, if it had been in humiliating fashion, his career as a fighter who can make big paydays would have been effectively over. At the very least, there would have been a long rehabilitation period, with rehab possible only because he has a sizable social media following.
But, relative to his loss to Tank Davis, Ryan Garcia is most definitely rehabilitated, as of now.
If you fell for it hook, line and sinker, don’t feel bad. There was no tangible evidence that Garcia could rise to the occasion on the big stage or that Haney was going to falter.
Garcia disqualified himself from eligibility for a belt by coming in overweight. Mauricio Sulamain of the World Boxing Council has clarified that because of that, Haney retains his title belt. Surely he’d like to get a rematch; what the WBC will do with its ratings in the super lightweight division is something I’m not certain of yet. Garcia should jump all the way up to the #1 spot, if that’s meaningful. But might Ryan be hunting for bigger game right now, from a financial standpoint?
Golden Boy Promotions, where Garcia is situated, has a couple of guys within range, but neither William Zepeda or Vergil Ortiz Jr. would seem to offer the proper risk-vs.-reward ratio for Garcia.
Ortiz, who is 20-0 with 20 KO’s, fought in January, but that was his only action since August 2022. Oscar De La Hoya would clearly like to make the match with Garcia, but Ortiz was 156 pounds in that January fight.
At 140 pounds there are a number of people who are associated with Top Rank, including Teofimo Lopez and Vasyl Lomachenko (who has an upcoming date with George Kambosos), but the cross-promotional thing may be an obstacle.
And in one of those X (formerly known as Twitter) posts that made people think Garcia was crazy, he called out undefeated Terence Crawford, who many consider the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. But does Crawford’s presence translate to box office success?
Ultimately, the best choice might indeed be a Haney rematch, which can be finalized without as much resistance as the alternatives, and might also produce a world championship opportunity.
That is, if Garcia even cares about that kind of thing.