Ryan Garcia revealed last week that he had been lied to following PBC’s announcement of the Tszyu-Thurman event where Rolando Romero will be featured in the co-main event against Isaac Cruz, and the alleged perpetrator of this deception has seemingly been confirmed to be Floyd Mayweather Jr. himself. Garcia had previously prematurely announced that he would be fighting Romero after deliberately changing his target of interest from Devin Haney to Romero. However, following the breakdown of talks for the Romero-Garcia fight, Haney has once again emerged as a potential opponent for Garcia to face in the near future.
Earlier this month, Ryan Garcia (24-1, 20 KO’s) and Floyd Mayweather Jr. had been spotted together in Las Vegas which was shortly followed by Garcia’s assertion that he was focused on arranging a fight with Rolando “Rolly” Romero (15-1, 13 KO’s) rather than Devin Haney (31-0, 15 KO’s) who he had called out openly before that.
The sudden change of wind in regards to who Garcia wanted to face bred speculation that Mayweather had been in his ear. Mayweather is currently the founder and owner of Mayweather Promotions who has promoted Romero for most of his career. Though it is unclear as to whether Romero is still signed to Mayweather Promotions, Romero is affiliated with PBC which is allegedly partially run by Mayweather himself, according to his own words.
Notably, Garcia is currently signed to Golden Boy Promotions, the promotion founded and owned by Oscar De La Hoya who is considered a rival promoter of Floyd Mayweather. Mayweather and De La Hoya have had a long history of disliking each other since they were both active professional boxers nearly twenty years ago, and this sentiment has seemingly not lessened since they both retired and became boxing promoters.
Given what is known of Romero’s connections to Floyd Mayweather Jr., there was a clear indicator that the retired Hall of Fame boxer was responsible for changing Garcia’s mind on fighting Haney to fight Romero instead. In an interview with Fight Hype, Garcia went on to basically admit to having had his decisions influenced by Floyd Mayweather.
“I invited the people to have a say in who I should fight next,” Garcia explained.
“Should it be Devin Haney or should it be Rolly Romero. The poll was close but ultimately Devin Haney won so I wanted to give everybody that fight because of the people [that] voted, and you should get what you voted for.
“Long story short, I’m in Vegas, I’m having a great time with, I’m hanging out with Floyd (Mayweather Jr.). Floyd’s pretty influential, he was like, ‘why don’t you fight Rolly for the belt and then fight Devin Haney’.
“[He] gave me advice, I said, ‘that pretty much makes sense but I told the people I’m gonna fight Devin’. He said, ‘you know, some things change’, is basically what he said. I’m paraphrasing here, it’s a lot deeper than that and there was a lot more conversation but I’mma save that, and then I made a quick decision.“
According to Ryan Garcia, Floyd Mayweather Jr. had clearly attempted to interfere with Garcia’s inclination to fight Haney by proposing he’d fight Rolly Romero instead. As Mayweather is not Garcia’s promoter, his attempt to sway Garcia to fight Romero could be considered to be “promotional tampering” as Garcia is exclusively signed to Golden Boy Promotions. However, there are not necessarily any legal implications in place as the Muhammad Ali Act―which is meant to mainly professional boxers―has not established a legal framework against such actions.
While Mayweather might publicly deny he did any sort of tampering, his public appearance with Ryan Garcia earlier this month has been confirmed and there is a clear case of Garcia publicly changing his mind to fight Romero after he met with Mayweather.
Ryan Garcia is now apparently revisiting the possibility of a fight with Devin Haney, according to his own admittance.
“It’s on the table, we can say that,” Garcia stated after being asked on whether there were negotiations between his team and Haney’s.
“I don’t want to say anything before it’s signed and delivered but can I say we’re in talks? For sure. We’re back in talks.“
While it may be the case of other opponents being talked to, Haney at least seems to be included on the list of potential opponents that Ryan Garcia might face in the near future. Though no date, venue or opponent have yet to be chosen, Garcia has seemingly learned from his past experience to no longer prematurely announce fights before both participating parties have signed on to make things official. What can be confirmed, however, is that Garcia’s next fight will likely occur at 140 lbs.
Meanwhile, Floyd Mayweather Jr. will likely be facing a lot of scrutiny for his role in tampering with another fighter’s career. However, as is usually the case in boxing, there will likely be no repercussion from what can be construed to have been promotional tampering on the part of Mayweather unless Golden Boy decides to initiate a legal case.
