Ryan Garcia recorded the most high-profile win of his career thus far this past Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, stopping Conor Benn inside five minutes to retain his WBC welterweight title.
Garcia called out WBA welterweight champion Teofimo Lopez for a unification bout in his post-fight interview. While Garcia would still like that fight to take place on Cinco De Mayo weekend in May 2027, he told Uncrowned’s “The Ariel Helwani Show” Monday that he also hopes to fight again beforehand.
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“I kind of want to get in the ring either December or January,” Garcia revealed. “That’s kind of where I’m looking at.
“There are a lot of people out there [who I want to fight]. You’ve got [Isaac] ‘Pitbull’ Cruz — I wouldn’t mind rumbling with him. Angel Fierro, he sparred me for this camp, I wouldn’t mind fighting him, too.
“I wouldn’t call [my next fight] a tune-up, but I don’t want to get caught off guard. I don’t want to wait until May to fight. Why do I have to wait until May? I have no bruises. I have no hits to the head. Why can’t I fight? I’ll give the fans a little treat.”
Garcia’s next fight will more than likely be his final bout with longtime promoter Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy.
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“We have one more fight under the Golden Boy banner,” Garcia confirmed. “We have another fight contractually obligated with Ring — basically Turki [Alalshikh], and that’s where I’m at. That’s the landscape now.”
“From my understanding,” he added, “they can both be fulfilled that same night.”
Once Garcia (25-2, 14 KOs) completes both contracts, he will be free from any existing promotional obligations. The star boxer has made it known that he plans to leave Golden Boy and push ahead with his own promotional company, KingRy Promotions.
Garcia said he had a positive experience with Dana White’s Zuffa Boxing, the lead promoter for his fight with Benn, and that could be a potential option for his next move.
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Garcia has also spoken openly about how much he has enjoyed fighting on DAZN over the years. With DAZN now doing deals directly with fighters, namely Lopez and Devin Haney, that could represent another avenue for Garcia.
While Garcia called out Lopez on Saturday, the bigger unification matchup for him, without a doubt, is a rematch with WBO welterweight titleholder Haney. Garcia dropped Haney three times in their highly entertaining April 2024 bout, but his win was overturned to a no-contest after Garcia tested positive for the banned substance ostarine.
In the years since, Garcia has repeatedly insisted he did not take the banned drug and has expressed frustration that his performance against Haney was tarnished because of it. It’s fair to say the Haney rivalry hasn’t simmered since the pair shared the ring, and now that Garcia is firmly in the driver’s seat, he is in no rush to give Haney a rematch.
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“Why not do it for undisputed? Why not gamble it all? I want to take everything from him,” Garcia said of Haney. “Right now, it’s a little premature. Let him get another belt. Let me get another belt. And let’s do it for it all. If you really want to [raise] the stakes, let’s do it all. Let’s put it all on the line. Everything you could imagine.
“You didn’t learn the first time? Let’s do it the second time even crazier. For all of the belts, straight up, [undisputed champion status at] 147 [pounds]. And I’m going to kick your f***ing ass. I’m going to f***ing destroy you.
“The next time I fight Haney, he might not fight again,” Garcia continued. “I’m telling you. I’m going to predict that now. Let this be known now — he won’t ever fight again once we fight. He knows that. After that, the paycheck will be too pretty, and his face will be too destructive. It’s over.”
While Garcia is targeting a Lopez unification for next May, Haney is in talks for his own unification bout with IBF welterweight champion Liam Paro. If both fights do materialize and Garcia and Haney emerge victorious, the stage could be perfectly set for an undisputed showdown during Mexican Independence Weekend 2027.
Ryan Garcia knocked down Devin Haney three times during their 2024 fight.
(Cris Esqueda/Golden Boy via Getty Images)
Since Garcia’s win over Benn, a near-consensus has emerged that Garcia may be the face of American boxing moving forward. The most recent face of the sport stateside was arguably Terence Crawford, who retired in 2025 after his win over Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
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More than a year has passed since that fight, and now we’re seeing subtle hints that Crawford may be ready to step through the ropes again. For example, in recent days the former pound-for-pound king has continued his feud with Jaron “Boots” Ennis.
Garcia, however, would be a much bigger fight for Crawford to return to than Ennis.
“I don’t mind that,” Garcia said of the matchup. “I want to avenge Canelo’s loss. I just want to beat [Crawford’s] ass, to be real. I want that. He knows that I want that. I’m willing to test him to see where he’s at.
“But will he come back out of retirement? I don’t know. He knows he has to [because] nobody knows who the f*** he is. He has to come back to boxing. He knows that, though. He can see that. The security didn’t even know who the f*** he was. That’s a problem.”
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Garcia believes that Crawford dislikes him and is jealous of him, since Crawford never got the respect he deserved outside of the boxing fan base until his dominant victory over Errol Spence Jr.
Crawford’s time near the top of the sport was short-lived, though, with his retirement coming just over two years after that Spence win, while Garcia has been — and still has many more years to be — a crossover star.
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