Ryan Garcia’s WBC welterweight title defense against Conor Benn this past Saturday was a Ring Magazine event, but you wouldn’t have known that from watching it on Paramount+ or following the event’s build-up.
Although TKO’s Zuffa Boxing was the lead promoter for the show, Ring events in the past have looked and felt different from those of the primary promoter. Saturday’s show did not follow that trend; it was very much a Zuffa Boxing and TKO product, and that was clear from how much control they exerted over the event and how they were associated with it.
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Golden Boy’s Oscar De La Hoya is the longtime promoter of Garcia and served as a co-promoter of Garcia vs. Benn, but he was very much left out of the build-up — and then entirely out of the picture on fight night.
“In the beginning, it was Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. that was going to walk out with me [on fight night], and I wanted to get maybe Oscar right there,” Garcia told Uncrowned’s “The Ariel Helwani Show” on Monday.
“I think that would be iconic. Oscar is a Mexican American, Julio is a legend from Mexico. I just thought it would be cool. But honestly, nobody wanted him there. That’s the God’s honest truth.”
Garcia did not clarify who he meant by “nobody,” but did say he wanted De La Hoya at the event. Zuffa Boxing’s Dana White has long held an acrimonious relationship with De La Hoya, which has only been inflamed further since the UFC CEO’s entry in boxing.
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Although Garcia would’ve liked for De La Hoya to be in attendance, he acknowledged Monday that he was not willing to put his foot down on the matter.
“Sometimes you’ve got to pick your battles,” Garcia explained. “It’s not a battle I really want to pick right here. I don’t really care who walks with me or not. I will say this, though: I wish Oscar was there. I wish he walked out with me. And I wish he would’ve been ringside no matter what.
“That would’ve shown his love for me the way that I imagined somebody that’s been with me the whole time would. OK, they don’t want to let you walk out. They did have a seat for you, though, and you didn’t take that seat. For me, I don’t respect that, and that disappointed me.”
Veteran boxing journalist Dan Rafael reported that Zuffa Boxing did provide De La Hoya with a ticket, but it was not where he was supposed to be seated contractually. De La Hoya would’ve had to walk through the crowd to reach his seat, posing a legitimate security concern, and essentially making it impossible for him to be at the event.
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Golden Boy was a co-promoter of the event and had fighters on the undercard but was reportedly provided with just two tickets and no access backstage or to the commission.
“They told me beforehand they don’t want Oscar there or to walk me out. I said, ‘OK, that’s fine,'” Garcia said. “They were like, ‘But he does have a seat.’ But he didn’t show up.”
Garcia says De La Hoya has not contacted him since his second-round TKO of Benn.
The relationship between Garcia and De La Hoya has lasted almost 10 years, but for the last seven of those years, it has been strained, to say the least.
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“I don’t know why he’s like that,” Garcia said. “He just doesn’t want to show up for the people he’s supposed to love. What’s up with that? It’s like, ‘Bro, I don’t know.’ It’s weird. He’s missing a part of himself, I don’t know what it is, though.
“Of course [it bums me out]. I started my career with him. I looked up to him pretty much when I was younger. Just for him to let his emotions get like that, it’s really disappointing. It’s like, ‘Where’s your maturity?’ Something’s off. He’s living in the past.
“I didn’t care for him to be a part [of fight week],” Garcia concluded, “but how special would it have been [if] he’s not there at all and then shows up on my walkout?”
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