Explicit

Boxing with Chris Mannix - A Stunner in Brooklyn

Published Apr 21, 2024, 5:41 PM

Mannix and Keith Idec unpack Ryan Garcia's shocking win over Devin Haney on Saturday night. #Volume #Herd

The volume.

Well, the eighty two game preseason is in the books and it's finally time for the real season. So don't miss out on any of the NBA playoff action at DraftKings Sportsbook and official sports betting partner of the NBA. If you guys follow me here for boxing, you know that I am a basketball guy through and through cover the NBA for almost twenty years, and I love the competitiveness of this playoff field. It all begins with the play in Tournament, which has some blue bloods participating in it. Out West, you've got the Warriors and the Lakers. In the Eastern Conference, the Heat and the seventy six Ers, which is going to lead to some ridiculously good first round matchups. The Celtics are either going to get the Heat or the Sixers, most likely. Out West, young teams like the Thunder and the Timberwolves, you're going to wind up, probably against a more experienced group at the bottom of the bracket. This playoff mix is incredible. I think it's gonna make for some great matchups, some great gambling opportunities over the next few months. So download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code manics new customers bet five dollars and get two hundred dollars in bonus bets instantly. That's code Manix only on DraftKings. The crown is yours.

Gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler or in West Virginia visit one eight hundred gambler dot net. In New York, call eight seven seven eight hope and WY or text hope and Y four six seven three six nine. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino when resorting Kansas twenty one and over age varies by jurisdiction, Void and Ontario one. No sweat bet per new customer issued as one bonus bet based on amount of initial losing bet. Bonus bets expire one hundred and sixty eight hours after issue. Ince See dknng dot com slash promos for deposit wagering and eligibility restrictions, terms and Responsible Gaming Resource says this is boxing with Chris Manning, who somebody punch him in the face.

Any Joshua is a composed and ferocious finisher. Watch this you raise this a.

Heavy winning chap posted by SI's Chris Mannix. That was my moments now with interviews, analysis and everything going on in the world of boxing.

When you have talent, you are given another.

Chance, hears Chris Mannix.

Amen one twelve one Club, My Last Mare one fourteen one ten, Robin Taylor one Pepin one O nine. You're wunner my my jokey decision.

Well, I say boxing is the theater of the unexpected. That was very unexpected. Ryan Garcia stunning the boxing world, taking a majority decision win over Devin Haney in just an incredible night at Barclays Center on Saturday. Keith Idek, longtime boxing writer, covered the event for Boxing News, did a great job doing that was at Barclay's on Saturday night. Keith, and I'm gonna assume that you like me, made Devon Haney a heavy favorite coming into this fight. You know, you gave Brian Garcia a puncher's chance to win. But you know, I think a lot of people thought Devin Haney might be the one that scores the knockout in this fight. It's dead. Ryan turns the tables, knocks Devin down three times. In that fight, hurt him several more times. Let's just start here. Your reaction to what you saw on Haiti Garcia.

Yeah, I'm very surprised, as I think most people are, Chris, because virtually everyone that I spoke to within the medium and even on social media, for the most part, I think people really expected Devin Haney not just to beat Ryan gar Garcia, but to beat Ryan Garcia badly, just based on what his mental state appeared to be going into the fight. So I was very surprised. But as we always say, Chris, you know, you and I have been covering a sport for a very long time, and that's why they fight. The fights. Oftentimes they go exactly how we kind of thought they were going to go, but that's why they fight, and that's why people love boxing. Like last night is one of those nights where people that will continue to draw people to this sport because just when you think you have it all figured out, something like that happens. And Ryan Garcia does have a lot of talent, as we well know, I would think was in a very bad place mentally throughout this training camp, admitted after the fight, Chris during the post fight press conference, which I kind of feel like just ended. You know, he was drinking rather heavily during training camp, so the kids has a lot of issues to deal with and for him to have fought through all of those things and put forth that type of performance when there was a lot of pressure on him because people thought that his career not would be over because he's twenty five years old. But if he took a bad beating last night, he would you know, his his stock would go dramatically down and he would be in a place where he would not be able to earn this type of money despite his star power. And he completely flipped the script, as they say, right and hold everybody fu in the press conference because he knew that most people doubted him going into this fight.

Oh, they had a hit list at that press conference. You heard, you know, Ryan, his father, members of the Golden Boy team, name checking, members of the media, former fighters that said whatever they said about Ryan Garcia over the last couple of months. You know, the first round really set the tone for that fight. Like you knew Ryan was going to come out aggressive because that's just who Ryan is. That's in his DNA to be a comeforard aggressive fighter. We saw it against Tank Davis about a year ago. Didn't work then because Tank is an unbelievable counterpuncher with incredible But in the very first minute of the first round, Keith Ryan Garcia landed that left hook right that Devin stood up to, and I'll give him credit for that. You watched the replay of that first round left hook that reminded me of the first round shot that Francisco Fonseka took back in twenty twenty that dropped fon Sake and knocked him out. Devon stood up to that shot and was able to continue, but he lost that round and that kind of set the tone for everything else coming into this fight. The primary weapon everyone was talking about for Ryan was that left hook, and Devon couldn't get out of the way of it. Every single one of the three knockdowns that he scored were either caused by or included a big left hook that put him on the canvas. And it surprised me that someone as disciplined as Devin Haney and as smart as Devon, you know, couldn't get away from that one shot. What did you think about that part?

Christon only took him forty five I have seconds to change the higher narrative of this fight. He caught him with a clean left hook. He wobbled him, obviously, and if he would have, if he would have capitalized on that a little more, could have knocked him out in the first round. You know, I thought there were the thing that surprised me more than anything. And maybe it was because of his conditioning, because I had heard that he wasn't in the type of shape, and clearly he wasn't. They blew weight by three plus pounds.

He wasn't Keith. And one thing I want to add to that is that there were a lot of times and maybe you could see it from your vantage point where you get to like the minute and a half point, and Ryan's looking at the score at the at the boards, he's looking to see what the clock is looking at because it did look like he was running out of gas.

It did, Chris, And what I was thinking is he let him off the hooks several times. And I just thought to myself, you never know what's going to happen on these scorecards, and this kid could wind up regretting not getting Devin Haney out of there multiple times, because you never you leave it in the judge's hands. You never know what's going to happen. Max de Luca had it even, And to be fair, Devin Haney won rounds in this fight. You know, as as great of a performance as this was for Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney deserves a lot of credit for getting off the deck three times, you know, fighting through trouble numerous other times, and one rounds. You know, you could argue that that he won five five rounds. I mean it was what Max de Luca had. You know, he had it one twelve twelve if you add you know.

If you and in fairness, that's that's how I had it too. I had it one twelve, one twelve. I got to go back and rewatch the twelfth round. That was the one that could have gone either way. I gave it at the time to Haney, but that easily could have gone to Garcia. But yeah, I had it won twelve even.

Yeah, And there were because there were times when Ryan Garcia just wasn't doing anything, you know, he wasn't letting his hands go, he was on his back foot, he was moving away from Devin Haney, and he was giving away rounds in effect. And then of course the rounds where he was winning big because he was knocking him down. He wasn't following up on that to try to get him out of there. For the most well, in the seventh he did. I didn't really love the point deduction that Harvey Dock is generally a good referee, but Devin Haney is whold him as tightly as you possibly can and Ryan Garcia is trying to fight out of it. What is he supposed to do? Just stand there, you know? So I thought that that was unfair to Ryan Garcia for that point deduction, and of course that took away the knockdown for him, and that was the knockdown for him in the fight, so it kind of negated that. And you wonder at that point would that have an impact on the scorecards, and it did not. Well, it did on Max de Lucas card because he would have won on Max to Lucas card with a point deduction, but on the other two cards it didn't make a difference because he won by four points and I think six points on the other cards. So thankfully that wasn't a factor and the outcome of the fight. But I didn't like that that happened. Of course, but yeah, I mean, you know, having slept only a few hours just like you did, Chris, and waking up, I'm still kind of did that happen last night? That's what happened, All that pulled up and how we all thought we had it figured out. And now, of course there were the revisionist historians who are now saying, oh, I knew Ryan Garcia. I didn't. I didn't one person outside of Ryan Garcia's camp and Ryan Garcia's family and maybe his you know, legion of fans or outside of those people. There was no one, and I mean no one saying that Ryan Garcia was going to win this fight. And now, of course you have to be oh, and I knew that. Of course we all. We all prefaced it by saying, look, the kids got really fast hands. He's got a devastating left hook. That's an X factor in all this and could always be the ultimate eraser for him. In some ways it was, but none of us really believed, based on what had happened throughout the build up of this fight, that he was going to win now.

And I got an ear full of that from certain people from Golden Boy in the ring, But don't the hpocrisy. There is a little bit too much the stomach. It was like, what five months ago that they weren't even on speaking terms with Ryan, and now we're supposed to believe that they were, you know, full throated behind him and believed one hundred percent that he was going to win. Now they didn't. There was a reason he was as big an underdog on fight night as he was, and look that this fight, it just felt like when you got to that sixth, seventh round that this was gonna be all Devin. I mean, he lost that first round because that left hook that wobbled him, but then I thought he won what for the next five maybe all five of the next rounds, and looked like he was in that same kind of rhythm that we saw him get into in the Regius Progray fight, where he just kept the fight at kind of that mid range distance. He was landing clean rights. Ryan was kind of on the move. He kept going back at times that little weird shoulder rolled or I don't even know what you call that right like he was It wasn't necessarily a shoulder roll, but he kept he kept turning his back to Devin to the point where I think Harvey, you know, made a decision that he was going to allow Devin just wail away on Ryan's back, because that's all he was showing him in that moment, Chris.

He keeps saying things like, you guys don't understand what I'm doing. We don't. Could you explain it was, I don't understand what you're doing. If you do and there's some method to it that's helping you win the fight, please explain it to us, because I would love to know. And as you said about Devin Haney, Chris, maybe what I was most impressed by is he goes through hell in the seventh round and almost gets knocked out, and you know, he got knocked down pretty early in the round and had to survive. Then he comes back in the eighth round and wins the round and he's putting Ryan Garcia on his back foot, And maybe it was because Garcia was gased from trying to get him out of there and all that kind of stuff. I don't know, but Devin Haney had a very strong eighth round after almost getting knocked out in the seventh, So I was like, well, maybe he's going to survive this too, just as he did in the first round and go on to win this fight. That turned out not to happen, of course, because he got knocked down in the tenth and eleventh and we all know what happened there after. But yeah, and maybe he had a broken jaw. I mean, I still don't know that.

For sure, but he says he doesn't. I saw him put on social media. Didn't break anything. I don't know if he had an X ray or anything like that. He certainly had some swelling around that area after the fight.

I think, Look, it's a devastating defeat in the sense that he was ascending to superstar status in this sport. But I think he will come away from this with a lot of respect from boxing fans as well, because he because not that you know, you'd never really seen them. The Lomachenko fight was a difficult fight because Lomachenko is one of the best technicians in the history of the sport, and it went back and forth and everything. But it wasn't the dog fight that this was because he really dig deep to places he had never been in a boxing ring before. And I think people will come away from that with a lot of respect for him. But he's still only twenty five years old himself, So I don't think it's you know, it's devastating in the sense it's going to affect his future purses and his place on the pound for poundless and all that kind of stuff. But I think he gained some fans last night as well by the way that he that he got off the canvas three times and really fought as hard as he could to not get knocked out.

What did you learn about Ryan Garcia in this fight, because you know, it was just a little over a year ago where he lost to Tank Davis. He was accused of being a quitter, you know, went down on a knee, didn't get up in that fight. That's kind of dogged him for the last year. I mean, even in the build up to this fight, Devin Haney kept calling Ryan a quitter over and over again. So he's got that quitter in him, and you know that was what was going to happen. I mean people were predicting that, you know, Devin would make Ryan retire on his stool. You know, it's being framed Keith, that you know, Ryan fooled us all that this was all just one big work that we shouldn't have believed anything that we saw that he was prepared for this fight. How much of that are you buying?

I don't believe that because I think that, unfortunately for him, he does have some serious mental and emotional issues. I don't think this was some I said this on Twitter the other day, Chris. I know this is gonna date me a little bit, but this would be like an Andy Kaufman like work if if this were him acting, you know, I just don't believe that. I think unfortunately, he's got some real issues to deal with. And he said after the press conference, you know, while he was mother effering everyone who doubted him, he also did admit that he's got some problems. And you hate to see someone go through that. I mean, just as a human being, you'd like to see the kid get his life in order. He's been through a lot of you know, issues with his wife and having multiple children, and he's had a lot of things going on in his life. Right. So what we learned about Ryan Garcia last night, and I'm always hesitanting, you know, we say this on the podcast all the time. I'm hesitant to question guy's heart and all that kind of stuff, because anyone who walks up those steps, Chris, I don't care if he's a journeyman fighter that we've never heard of and has forty eight losses or whatever. It takes a lot of balls to do this for a living in any way, and I'm mindful of that all the time. So it's not like I didn't think he had any heart, But did he have the mental fortitude when the going got tough to do what he did last night? We didn't really know that because he hadn't fought someone on the level of Devin Haini when his back was against the wall like this, except for Javonte Davis, and we saw what happened in that fight. You know, people thought that he went in that fight. People thought, you know, look, he came into the fight injured, according to him, and you have to take him at his word for that, and there seems to be some real evidence that he did have a rib injury going into that fight. But people thought that he could have gotten up and tried to continue to fight against Gervonte Davis, and he just said, look, I'm making a lot of money here. He made a business decision and stayed on his knee. So he drew a lot of criticism for that, and rightfully so. But I think, you know, just when we all think we have it figured out, sometimes, like I said, this is why they fight the fights, right, I mean, this is what makes boxing great in some ways. So kudos to Ryan Garcia and his team. And I'm happy for Derek James in the sense that you know, Derek's taken a lot of criticism over the last year or so because well, like a nine months whatever it's been since Errold Spence got dominated by Terrence Crawford. And Derek's a good guy. He is a very good trainer. I'm sure he could probably write a book alone on what it's been like to work with Ryan Garcia over the last how many ever months. So you know, Derek is a steadying presence in people's corners and everything. He's a smart guy and obviously had Ryan Garcia in the type of place where he could win this fight the way that he did. I don't think many people believed was I don't even did his own family. I don't know. I mean, this is all disconcerting behavior, man. I mean, I don't know how anyone would feel really confident about him going into the fight. But Derek does seem to be one of the few people who thoroughly believed in what he could do, and then he went out and executed last night.

You Know, one of the things Derek said to me during the fight week was that Ryan believes in himself as much as any fighter that he's ever worked with. That was when I was asking him kind of what Ryan's best attributes here. And I feel like that manifested itself in the ring because this was a win of wills.

Right.

I don't think Ryan technically beat Devin in this fight, right, he didn't. I didn't see a lot of you know, strave out a great strategy here. You know, I saw a guy that you know, was just stronger, faster, and believed that he had the power and the ability to best you know, Devin Hainey Andy Mean out there and did it like he he powered himself, you know, to this victory on Saturday, And that is kind of I think reflects what Derek was talking about, that Ryan believes that he is great and that he can accomplish anything in the ring, and that's exactly what he he went out there and and did. He also, you know, re established himself as a big time box office draw. There was but fourteen thousand fans in the building on Saturday. I don't know what the paper you numbers are right now, but they'll probably be pretty good. And that's largely because people are there to see the electricity of Ryan Garcia like he is is is such a big time star in the sport. Now we have to talk about the weight, right, like you know, that's a factor here. Ryan came in three and a half pounds overweight on Friday. Devin agreed to have the fight Continuees paid something out of Ryan's purse. Does the fact that Ryan won after blowing through the contracted weight, does that diminish this at all in your mind?

Unfortunately, he's going to be celebrated despite that he did that because Chris he wasn't, as you well know, he wasn't a little overweight.

He just that's a lot.

That's a lot, Yeah, three plus pounds overweight, And it's completely disrespectful to Devin Haney. And and when you're in that position and you're going to make a lot of money the next day, and you're Devin Haney, who who is you know, has the utmost belief in his own ability He's like, all right, well, it's not going to make that much of a difference. I'm gonna go beat this kid. He's I mean, Devin Haney had said right up to the day of the fight, there's something wrong with this kid, clearly, so he felt like maybe he was fighting damaged goods from a mental perspective more so than a physical perspective. So he went forward with the fight. And I heard what he said to you in the ring last night, and I give him credit. He didn't make any he said, Look, no, I did what I did, and I don't regret it. He took you know, he obviously was paid some money out of Ryan Garcia's purse. Whatever the actual figure is, who knows, but he was paid probably a substantial amount of money out of his purse, and that's the decision he made and he stands by that. So I give him credit for not towing there. So, oh, he didn't make weight and all that kind of stuff. He took his loss like a man and didn't make that excuse. But had he said something about Ryan or complained in the immediate aftermath about Ryan Garcia doing what he did, I would not have faulted him because the guy just completely disregarded the contract and came in and knowing Chris also knowing that Devin Haines's not going to walk away from the fight. If he would have been, if he would have been one hundred and forty five pounds, they still would have fought. I would pay a little bit more money out of his purse, but they still would have thought because you know that someone who puts all of this effort and resources financially into these training camps and everything, because Devin Haney has said he spends a lot of money on his training camps, as most fighters at the top level do. You're not going to walk away from the fight the day before, so you kind of know that you can get away with doing this. It's not a good look for Ryan Garcia, but frankly, I don't think a lot of the people who support him are going to care. They're not going to look at it like, well, this was wildly irresponsible and unprofessional of Ryan Garcia. They're going to look at it like, yeah, he went in there and beat up Devin Haney and got the biggest win of his career, and however he got there, Well, who cares? And that unfortunately. Chris is kind of a commentary on our society in general. You know, people just disregarding rules and regulations and such, just and just getting away with it, and in this case being rewarded for it. But that's life.

Yeah, it's the risk you take. Right and I reference this on Saturday, you go back to a fight that you know, well, Diego corrals Jose Luis Castillo two where Castillo blew passed one hundred and thirty five limit three and a half pounds, almost exactly what Ryan went past his weight limit. And in the fourth round of that fight, you know, Castile landed a bomb that put Corrales out. I mean, it's it's it's kind of the the the decision you have to make if you're a fighter. Is it worth it for you to go in with the guy that is that much bigger? And look, you know you can considue that example Corrals Castillo three, which never happened, you know, didn't happen because Castilla was way too big at that point. So you know, you know, Carrel has kind of learned his lesson. I wonder as you know, as Devin moves forward, you know, and I know he has an unflinching belief in himself and that he can win any fight possible if he learns a lesson from that, saying, you know what, if a guy's going to come in that much heavier, I'm just not going to go forward with the fight, which brings me to the future of these two, because Keith, this is a no brainer. Run it back right like this is. I don't I don't know any other fight that makes sense for these two guys now wouldn't happen one hundred and forty pounds. You know. Ryan made it clear at the press conference he's done at one forty, when the reality is he's never actually been at one forty. I think he he made one forty once and that was for a fight that was originally contracted at one thirty five. It's Hoavier Fortuna, So it's it's all, it's all. It's a little weird, weird stuff there. But he's not going to fight at the junior welterweight limit. He is going to move up to the welterweight division, which could present Devin with a choice to make again. Does he fight Ryan at welterweight, does he defend his title, which he still has like, I didn't quite get that. I thought he would have lost it, but I guess you know. Mauricio Suliman qualified this afterwards on social media that because the fight was above one forty, just like Corrales Castillo, Devin keeps his belt. So it strikes me Keith that Devon's going to have a decision to make here.

I actually understand, and I've obviously been critical, as you have, Chris, of Mauricio A. Suliman and all of the sanctioning organizations at various times. But in this case, I understand that though because he didn't he didn't participate in one hundred and forty pound fight, and he did his job. He showed up on weight and fought a guy who was a welterweight. This was a welterweight fight. This was not a junior welterweight fight or super lightweight as WBC calls it. But so I do understand that, and at least gives him a little bit of leverage because I'm not entirely sure that they're going to fight. What you said makes perfect sense, Chris. I mean, the rematch will never be hotter than doing it next. I don't know that Devin Haney's gonna want to go into that right away, and obviously they did not have a rematch clause in their contracts, so Ryan Garcia is now free to do what he wants. I could see him now saying that he's going to fight at one hundred and forty seven pounds, kind of fighting a because he's he's got so much momentum now and everything they can kind of give him a I don't want to stay an easy fight, but a very winnable fight against maybe an opponent that people know in the welterweight division, but someone that they would clearly expect Ryan Garcia to beat. I could see that type of fight being next for him, because they'll bring him to Southern California to celebrate his big win over Devin Haney and then see if they can do rematch thereafter, and see also how Haney recovers in his next fight, whatever weight that is at, because he would if he keeps his WBC title, he's going to have to fight Sandor Martin next to his mandatory challenger. And that's a very very different fight obviously than Ryan Garcia, and there's.

Tough to make money in that fight too. I mean that's not a pay per view.

A lot of money in that fight, and he doesn't really need the I'm glad that the WBC didn't take the title from him based on what happened over the last two days, But he doesn't really need the title either because now he's not going to after what happened last night. He's not fighting Suprio Matias. That's not happening. And now the build up toward a tia Fima Lopez fight, which was another fight a lot of people would want to see. The momentum is not there for that anymore either, really, So you know, if he gets a couple of wins under his belt and doesn't fight Ryan Garcia again, well then that's a fight that could clearly happen. But yeah, I mean, he'd have to take a huge pay cut basically to fight Sandor Martinz has no fan base in the United States and the very tricky fighter who's who beat Mikey Garcia and some people think beat tia Fimo Lopez is not an easy fight. So it's interesting to see what Devon will do. Maybe Devin says I'm a forty seven pounder because he has spoken, as has Eddie hearn about him fighting at one forty seven sooner than later before what happened last night. So maybe he goes up to one forty seven and that winds up being where their rematch is, or maybe it's one forty they made it a catch one forty five or something.

I don't.

As much as I think you're one hundred percent correct and that the time is now for them to do intermediate. And when I say immediate, you know within six you got to give Devin Haney some time to recover after what happened. Yeah, thing, And that's assuming that he doesn't have a draw injury or whatever. And if he says he doesn't, he doesn't. But I don't know that it's going to be next unfortunately.

Yeah. I'm just trying to think of potential. Like one thought I had for Ryan is Connor Ben And you know, Connor's out there unable to fight right now in the UK, has fought his last couple of fights in the US. He was on social media sand he'd fight Ryan in his next fight. If you wanted to do a quote unquote big fight in southern California at welterweight, that's one I could I could think of and that's a winnable fight for Ryan. Dangerous fight to some degree, but a winnable fight I think for Ryan in a marketable fight as well. To your point about Devon, I just I can't see him fighting Santa Martin. I don't see him getting up for that fight at the end of the year. And I could see the competitive juices in Devon kicking in and Devon and his team saying to themselves, look, we made every mistake in the book in that fight. We got caught by the one punch we were supposed to be avoiding. That's the one punch we talked about. We called Ryan Garcia a one trick pony the entire fight promotion, and then he hit us with that one trick over and over and over again. And I could see Devin saying, look, I'm a big guy. Let me rehydrate up to one forty seven. Naturally, I'll be in better condition, legs, maybe won't be quite so heavy. I think you're gonna see Devin just a guess, but I think you're gonna see Devon motivated to make that fight next. And and if you're Ryan, like you just won that fight, you know you can hurt this guy, They'll pay you probably triple what you made for this fight, because I think whatever the pay per view numbers are for the first fight, I think they quadruple in in the second fight. I think they go really really high because you know, if you didn't watch that fight on pay per view on Saturday, you've see in the highlights of it, you see in the reaction to it, You're gonna be you'll be invested in seeing the rematch. Uh, You'll probably be in Vegas because you know this fight belongs in Vegas. Anyway. There's just so much money Keith in in that rematch. I think it's gonna be really hard for both guys to turn down. If you know, Dezonne, Golden Boy, come at these guys right with the right offers.

That's true, Chris, And then money is uh, you know, is a powerful drug, right and people are. But Garcia now has a lot of leverage too. Yeah, So if he wants to go get a gimme fight in between and says, okay, well, Devin Haney needs some time to recover and go back into a you know, a very difficult training camp and all that kind of stuff, maybe Ryan Garcia gets back in the ring sooner than we think and just has the type of fight where you know, it's set up for him to win. Like I said, I don't know necessarily. I mean, the connor Ben fight would be interesting for sure, and there and there are reasons why Deszone would want that fight to happen. They've invested in connor Ben recently so and he still is not cleared to fight in the UK, so why wouldn't he fight in the US?

Right?

And obviously he's with Matchroom, which has a deal with his own and Eddie and all that, so it all makes perfect sense for him to fight someone like that next. But even if he thought a lesser opponent than connor Ben, you know, it's gonna sell out in an arena in southern California and it'll be to celebrate Ryan Garcia and his fans will turn out and everything, and he'll you know, obviously not gonna make the kind of money he would make for fighting Devin Haney again, but it'll make a nice chunk of change. And it just depends. The thing, like I'm going to be interested is Secris is how does he react to winning this fight in the way that he did? And what I mean by that is, how does he behave outside of the ring? Does he change any of his behavior?

Because this is I don't think so.

I don't think that's the thing, right, Chris. He has now been rewarded for what we can only look at as sort of absurd behavior from a fighter. I mean, he's saying that I was drinking, you know, pretty heavily, it would seem, during training camp. And who knows what else he was doing during training camp that he's not mentioning. So if he's been validated last night from doing what he did, what's to stop him from doing more of the same or worse. So I worry, honestly, I worry about him in that respect because you know that happens all the time. You know, people are at the highest points of their career and they just go nuts. And I don't mean that like from a metaphor standpoint. Yeah, I mean, so what are they gonna do now?

He was doing that already, Yeah, it's only going to embolden him and going into next training camp, whatever training camp that is. I don't see him making any kind of substance change because why would he He just beat a top ten pound for pound guy beat him down in this fight, and he did it his way. He did it his way. That's look what it's all said and done. I am ultimately happy for Ryan. I think Ryan's a good guy. I think he's been dealing with a bunch of stuff, you know, based on his own wording from his past, you know, there's a lot of things that he's passionate about now. I do think he has some people around him that don't necessarily have his best interest at heart. But I think at his core, Ryan is a pretty is a really good guy, and so I'm happy for him in that respect. I didn't think it was kind of funny. You know, Henry Garcia's father, he was running around basically yelling at everybody, including me by the way, like yelling you know where you know you guys doubted him.

Did you get an F in the ring?

No, I know I got it in the ring. I had I'll peel back the curtain a little bit here. I had Bernard yelling at me. I don't know what that was all about. I thought that was a little hypocritical, since, as I said, like you.

Know, was yelling, it was arguing with Ryan Garcia.

Last fight this is what I'm saying. Like, you know, in the week before his fight against Oscar Duarte, Bernard and Ryan were not on speaking terms. When Ryan won his fight, Bernard didn't go anywhere near him in the ring, so like, don't Bernard was yelling at me, and I think Bernard was was kind of using me as the h to represent all media writ large, right, Like he was saying, like you doubt him, You now now you want to you want to be all over Now you want to interview him, now you want to talk to him? Well, yeah, Bernard, I have a microphone, so his own mic flag. I've I've got to do a post fight interview here.

And Henry, you know, his zone is paying a lot of money, by the way.

No kidding. Yeah, And Henry's kind of grabbing at me. And I like Henry too. I like these I like Henry a lot. I mean, and and I've always said that Henry, as much as anyone, deserves such an enormous amount of credit because he helped get Ryan to a certain point in his career and then he handed him off to Eddie Renosso and he's been able to, you know, sort of take himself a little bit back in these situations. But I did think it was funny. I'm sure you saw by now the the interaction with Edie heard yeah in the hall, was on social media, which was incredible, right, like it's it's Henry just going nuts at Eddie and look, I can see what where Eddie's comments over the last couple of days probably rubbed Henry the wrong way because Eddie was like this. Eddie was kind of echoing Devon, like there's something wrong with this guy. He could do something crazy. He could bite him, could throw a chair at him, you know, and then I think he's gonna quit his stool. But I did think it was funny as Henry's like yelling at him, He's going, he's going, you know, Luke Campbell, Devin Haney, who you got next? And Eddie goes boots Ennis, Henry goes maybe not, he goes what about he saw Cruiz? So I thought I enjoyed. I enjoyed that.

That the interaction when when you say you're moving up to welterweight and he counters with, well, okay, how would you like to fight Jeron Ennis? The conversation ends there, I would assume.

Quickly, quickly it quickly ends on that note. But look, Ryan's gonna have a lot of options. He's a money man. He's back again. People were talking about him, understandably maybe being on the influencer circuit if if he had lost this fight as badly as some people thought he might loss it. He is not headed in that direction. He is headed back to world level. I mean, I don't even know if Ryan lever win a title like I don't know, I don't know if he doesn't. He clearly doesn't place much of a priority on it and doesn't need it. Like you know, I know there are people out there that talk about legacy, and legacy certainly is important, but you know, he puts butts in the seats, he sells pay per views, he's in the biggest fights whenever he chooses to fight, regardless of belts. It's I'm sure it'll be nice for him someday to wear a belt around his waist, but it clearly isn't that important Keith.

Yeah, And like you said, Chris, he really doesn't need it because ultimately, while legacy is important for most boxers, you want to be remembered historically when you're long gone for being a world champion or a unified champion or an undisputed champion and all that's all important, But ultimately, Chris, this is about making as much money as you can for you and your family within the short window in which you can fight, right, And that's that's clearly what it's about for Ryan Garcia, who's doing things very unconventionally, so he does he care if he's if he I mean, is he gonna tell I want to fight Mario bar I'm gonna move up to welterweight and I gotta fight Mario Barrios or Montes Stanionis or don't care about that? I mean, and I don't.

He's not doing that.

He's about it's about money, so he is.

He's saying, Keith, He's saying, you know, the Sebastian fan door stuff. I mean, this is more trolling. Again.

He wants to go up to what would be kind of amusing and completely unforeseen if he winds up fighting about I don't see it for obvious reasons. He's you see it all like all a million reasons why it wouldn't happen, But it'll be kind of hilarious if that's what what Ryan Garcia winds up doing say a year from now, so he beats Devin hit agree match he wasn't fighting Fundor I mean, it would be kind of hilarious, you know.

It would be. It would be unbelievable, a great night. And that that's why we love boxing, right because stuff like this can happen, and all of a sudden, you think you're gonna be sitting down and watching a one side fight, and all of a sudden you get one of the best fights of the year. Just an incredible night at Bargas Keith good stuff. Check out Keith's on all things. Garcia Haney over at Boxing NUDS did a terrific job with his spite coverage there. Appreciate it, Keith.

We'll do it again my pleasure, Chris Dockey soon

Boxing with Chris Mannix

Chris Mannix brings fans closer to the ring through in-depth conversations with the top names in box 
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 296 clip(s)