For junior welterweight superstar Ryan Garcia, just eight months removed from his first pro defeat, few could have expected Saturday’s return to the ring would bring forth so much drama and controversy. No, the 25-year-old social media sensation hasn’t been beefing it up with his opponent, Mexican slugger Oscar Duarte (26-1-1, 21 KOs, whom Garcia will face off against inside the Toyota Center in Houston on Saturday.
Nor has Garcia (23-1, 19 KOs) been found wasting too much time verbally sparring with his online critics or the legion of big-name opponent prospects who continue to call him out thinking his knockout loss to Gervonta Davis in April was some form of referendum as to why Garcia is more hype than substance. Instead, Garcia’s fight this week has been against his own team, Golden Boy Promotions, and the two key figureheads in founder Oscar De La Hoya and fellow Hall of Famer Bernard Hopkins. In one sense, the escalation of their disagreement isn’t much of a surprise, especially after the Golden Boy executives infamously skipped the post-fight press conference following Garcia’s loss to Davis. The aftermath of that incident, which De La Hoya described as merely miscommunication, also saw “The Golden Boy” take shots at Garcia publicly about the much-ballyhooed hydration clause that the California native accepted in order to secure such a difficult-to-make superfight involving multiple networks.