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Ryan Garcia may be more influencer than boxer. With incredible talents and hand speed, it seems even the great Derrick James can’t get through “King Ry’s” head. He took on Oscar Duarte, who was 26-1-1 with 21 knockouts, at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas.
Garcia, who is coming off of his first career loss to Gervonta Davis, looked to perform at his new weight class at super lightweight. Instead, Garcia had a sub-par performance and had fans booing the towards the end of the fight.
Is Ryan Garcia coachable?
On his third trainer, Ryan Garcia has had trouble in whatever gym he’s been to. His last two have had the best names in the business. Eddy Reynoso has trained names like Canelo Alvarez, Oscar Valdez, and Andy Ruiz. After leaving that gym, Garcia teamed up with Derrick James, the mastermind behind Errol Spence Jr. And Jermell Charlo. From the looks of things, James is having the same problems as Reynoso.
Throughout the fight, Garcia made some rather odd choices. Known for his hand speed and left hook, Ryan Garcia went out trying to emulate Floyd Mayweather but with a weirder type of shoulder roll for the majority of the fight.
Early on, Garcia found Oscar Duarte walking him into the corner and clubbing him down as Garcia covered up. Garcia worked out that it wasn’t the best idea to let that keep happening and circled away from the corners when pushed there.
Turning his back, Garcia found himself on the receiving end of some left hooks from Oscar Duarte and nope’d his way out of those situations by turning his back completely to Duarte.
When that stopped working, Garcia started coasting around the ring laterally and making Duarte chase him. That’s when the crowd boo’ed both fighters as Duarte didn’t seem to know what to do with an opponent that wouldn’t stand in front of him and just walked around with Garcia and occasionally throwing a wide punch that missed.
Pulling out a trick
Ryan Garcia wasn’t losing this fight on the score cards but the online conversation was not pretty. As round eight came around, Garcia started finally making that left hand find its mark. As Duarte came forward, trying to corner Garcia, “King Ry” landed that left hook and Duarte’s legs went to jelly.
Garcia smelled blood and pounced on his hurt foe. Eventually Duarte had enough and took a knee to get an eight count and suddenly the crowd was alive.
The fight wouldn’t be without its controversy as referee James Green went through the eight count. Oscar Duarte took a bit long to get up and waited past the eight count into the dangerous territory of “9” and “10.” The referee saw it fit to call the fight despite Duarte popping up late.
This was probably for the best, despite Duarte’s protests. Duarte probably will not want to take any extra damage and live to fight another day.
Rolly Romero vs. Ryan Garcia next?
In his post fight interview, Ryan Garcia made it clear he was after a belt in his new weight class of 140. But super lightweight is stacked. Teofimo Lopez, Subriel Matias, and Regis Prograis are all champions in the division and you have Devin Haney moving up from 135. Then throw in names like Jose Ramirez, Sandor Martin, Gary Antuanne Russell and Garcia has some boogeymen in front of him. So what does he do?
He calls out Rolly Romero, the WBA Super Lightweight World Champion. Romero isn’t seen as a particularly strong champion and was gifted a finish over Ismael Barroso in May. Like Garcia, Romero’s only loss comes from Gervonta Davis as well.
It’s a fight to make, I guess. Garcia gets the title shot and Rolly Romero gets a chance to make big money once again.
