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It looks like all is not well at Golden Boy Promotions, as their CEO and their biggest star have gotten into a public spat on twitter. The exchange between Ryan Garcia and Oscar De La Hoya was started off by plans made public by De La Hoya that he had apparently not run by his star first, but they quickly escalated from there.
De La Hoya makes plans, Ryan Garcia disagrees
Garcia, fresh off his loss to Gervonta Davis last month, is moving up permanently to 140lbs, and is considering his first moves at the weight. Oscar De La Hoya, the company’s founder and leader, reportedly told the media that he will be pursuing a fight with the legendary Manny Pacquiao, believing that to be a huge draw.
He may well be right, but it seems he needed to sit down with Garcia himself before he made that public announcement. The young fighter immediately took to twitter to give his view on the possibility- which was not complimentary.
He declared outright that the fight “isn’t happening”, and that he’s frustrated to see it raised when he’d already stated what he wants. That appears to be a reference to another tweet, made the day before, in which he laid out three options for his next opponent that he’d like to pick from. Those three are Rolly Romero (‘Rollies’), Teofimo Lopez, or Isaac Cruz.
In De La Hoya’s defence, Garcia himself listed the reasons why none of those fights may be on the table. Romero, who holds a title by virtue of a truly horrendous referee stoppage a few weeks ago, has already had his mandatory defence ordered. He’ll be fighting Ohara Davies, unless Garcia can come up with some big step-aside money for the Brit.
Meanwhile, Isaac Cruz is fighting in the division Garcia just left. Lopez has business of his own, currently busy being as controversial as he possibly can to promote his fight with Josh Taylor next week. So De La Hoya may not be wrong to be seeking other options. Nonetheless, he probably should have checked in with his main draw before he made such declarations. Especially since there’s an equally solid reason that fight is off the table too – Pacquiao has been retired for nearly two years.
De La Hoya’s previous rift with Canelo
It’s not as if De La Hoya hasn’t got previous experience with this sort of thing. He’d previously been the promoter of Canelo Alvarez, at the time the biggest star in boxing- but after securing a huge deal for the fighter back in 2018, the relationship soured, Canelo sued, and they parted ways in 2020. Quite what went on isn’t public knowledge, but the root of the issue appears to be something similar- Golden Boy promised DAZN certain fights from Canelo, but hadn’t cleared that with the fighter first.
This situation appears to be less serious for now, as he hasn’t actually committed to Garcia fighting anyone yet- but he doesn’t seem to have heeded the warning signs from back then.
Ryan Garcia betrayed by his team?
His promoter isn’t the only person Garcia appears to have had problems with since his loss to Davis. We’d already heard in the days after the fight about the mole present in his camp, but now he’s told TikToker and influencer Bradley Martyn that he was hurt by more than that. Some observers had noted at the time that Garcia cut a lonely figure at the post-fight press conference, with few if any of his team in support.
De La Hoya himself claimed good reasons for his absence, but Garcia told Martyn that the actions of his team told him who wasn’t there for him. He further said he felt that Davis’ team was more there for him than his own, and alluded to changes in the people around him going forward.
Whether that will result in a change of promoter remains to be seen and is probably a bit more complicated, with the contracts involved. But he did immediately part ways with his coach, Joe Goosen, albeit with Goosen claiming the parting was amicable.
De La Hoya responds and Garcia is furious
Oscar De La Hoya didn’t appear to have an immediate comment to the Pacquiao issue, but he did appear to take the comments about the presser personally. His thoughts on the matter, telling Garcia to blame his advisor alone for the events of fight week, drew a furious response from his star. The response has now been deleted, but ESPN was able to capture the exchange.
After a bunch of deleted tweets and jabs at each other, De La Hoya ended the conversation claiming he isn’t interested in arguing over social media.
To put it lightly, the pair do not appear to be seeing eye to eye. De La Hoya’s ire appears to have been particularly drawn by the suggestion that Davis’ team was more supportive. He reminded Garcia of the rehydration clause they insisted on, but was perhaps more irritated by the implication that he’s less supportive than Tank’s advisor and Pro Boxing Champion’s boss, Al Haymon, who famously rarely shows up to fight weeks at all.
Garcia’s response accused De La Hoya of a lack of loyalty and common sense, being a liar who’s just in it for the cash. Although that response has been deleted, it’s clear things are going to be thorny between the pair for the forseeable future. What it means for Garcia’s career remains to be seen.
It doesn’t seem likely a Pacquiao fight is on the cards, though.
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