key events
Why tonight’s highlight isn’t for the championship
If you’re wondering why tonight’s main event was relegated to a non-title bout, it’s because Ryan Garcia failed to make the 140-pound super lightweight limit. And he didn’t miss it one bit.
The challenger weighed in by an eye-popping 3.2 pounds in their behind-closed-doors fight on Friday morning, prompting a series of last-minute negotiations between both camps to allow tonight’s fight to go ahead.
This means Garcia will no longer be eligible to win Haney’s WBC title. If Haney loses, the title will be vacant.
Garcia leaned further into the chaos of the public weigh-in when he stepped onto a scale in the Barclays Center atrium and appeared to rattle from a beer bottle, confirming his weight at 143.2 pounds. Haney tipped the scale at 140 pounds.
“I had a big beer and that thing was really hot,” Garcia said shortly after the fighters gathered and stared nervously. “I tried my hardest to get to this weight. I put myself through hell.
“He was extremely unprofessional,” Haney said. “I told him yesterday that his antics would betray him and this was just the beginning.
Preface
Hello and welcome to tonight’s matchup between Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia at Barclays Center. We’re ringside in Brooklyn watching a top-notch showdown between two of America’s brightest young boxing stars, both 25 and in their prime, at least on the surface. But after one of the most unusual major fights in recent memory, Garcia’s extremely erratic behavior and questions about his mental health have led many to question whether the fight should even take place.
Haney (31-0, 15 KOs) unified all four major titles with a career-best victory over Vasily Lomachenko at 135 pounds nearly a year ago, then moved up to 140 pounds and Became the WBC’s version of the super lightweight champion with an impressive win over Regis Prograsse, the two-weight champion.
Garcia (24-1, 20 KOs) is a social media superstar with more than 10.5 million followers on Instagram and another 7.5 million on TikTok, and should be fighting for the belt tonight. But at yesterday’s weigh-in, he was an eye-popping 3.2 pounds overweight, disqualifying him from winning the title. (If Haney loses, the belt will be vacant.)
The weight meltdown was the culmination of months of disturbing behavior by Garcia, both personally and on social media.Since Haney claimed to smell alcohol on her opponent’s breath during a bicoastal media tour, Garcia’s once-graceful persona on social media has descended into disturbing conspiracy theories and apparent cries for help, especially X Spaces livestream from the Tate with Andrew (and the subsequent Twitter storm) where he Claimed to have been kidnapped Bohemian Grove is a secret club for the wealthy in Sonoma County, controlled by an “elite” and “forced to watch children being raped.”
There have been many times over the past few months where it seemed we just couldn’t make it through the night due to Garcia’s erratic behavior. But here we are. We fighters are expected to step into the ring for the main event in just over an hour.
Brian will be here soon. In the meantime, here’s his look ahead to tonight’s main event.
