April of 2024 Ryan Garcia missed weight in his scheduled championship bout against Devin Haney. Despite missing weight Haney agreed to keep the fight going with accepting to pay $500,000 for every pound that he was over the 140 pound limit which he was 3 pounds over. Due to Garcia missing weight, the belts were not on the line.
What happened during their fight shocked the boxing world as Garcia dropped Haney multiple times. To Haney’s credit, he got up every time. But Garcia dominated and put on what we thought was a career defining performance. Winning a unanimous decision against Haney.
That was the performance that boxing fans were waiting to see from Garcia and the expectations of a potential rematch and Gervonte ‘Tank’ Davis or even running it back again with Haney was all on the table. Garcia seemed to have had leverage to call whatever shot he wanted because he was going to be one of boxing’s biggest attractions.
PED user
All of that momentum would take a dramatic turn on June 20th 2024. The New York State Athletic Commission suspended Ryan Garcia for one year following a positive test for the performance enhancement drug Ostarine. Garcia was forced to forfeit his $1.2 million purse and was fined $10,000.
Despite Garcia’s claims to his innocence and multiple attempts to try to prove his innocence, his appeal was upheld. All of the momentum that he had after the Haney fight was gone. Now boxing fans started to question how valid the performance actually was. Some fans still gave Garcia his props for dropping Haney multiple times and said that he would have done it clean or dirty.
The comeback fight
On January 16th 2025 Ryan Garcia and Devin Haney both agreed to fight each other in the Fall but will fight in the same card in May against different opponents. Garcia would be viewed as the favorite against Rolando “Rolly” Romero. Fans were eager to see if Garcia was able to put on a good performance against Romero. By the time round two happened, everyone received their answer. Romero dropped Garcia with a left hook to his chin. From that point on Garcia was scared to trade after feeling Romero’s power. Romero would go on to notch an easy victory against Garcia.
From the looks of it, Garcia is not a real contender when the playing field is clean. He acted like he actually accomplished something by beating up Devin Haney on PED’s and being overweight was a fluke. Ryan Garcia is a cheater and a fraud who disrespected the great sport of boxing not once but twice in one night. He’s probably going to get a second chance at fighting Haney again. Not with him proving that he’s a fraud he should really go to the back of the line and fight his way back to title contention.
Robert LaMar is a writer for Dice City Sports. You can follow him on X
