Yesterday’s “Fatal Fury” press conference heralding the upcoming May 2nd card that will feature Devin Haney, Ryan Garcia and Teofimo Lopez going up against respectively Jose Carlos Ramirez, Rolando Romero and Arnold Barboza Jr. notably saw no shortage of controversy. The Riyadh Season-sponsored card will be hosted in Times Square, New York, which will be overseen by the New York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC) ― which is notably coming off a dubious decision to allow the draw between Gervonta Davis and Lamont Roach to stand. The launch presser itself was held in Los Angeles, California, and therefore fell under the California State Athletic Commission’s (CSAC) authority.
During the press conference, Teofimo Lopez striking future opponent Arnold Barboza Jr. was one of main the highlights of the show. The two American fighters faced off against each other for the first time and appeared not to be able to keep their hands off each other, with shoving and pushing quickly ensuing before Lopez decided to slap Barboza Jr.
As is expected of modern-day boxing, this incident has been normalized in the sport and despite the display unprofessionalism from mostly Lopez, no repercussions are set to be implemented by the CSAC.
No repercussions have been announced by the CSAC to occur based on the show of unprofessionalism from both Lopez and Barboza, which further demonstrates the success of recent marketing where belligerent behavior, unproved acts of violence and favoritism are condoned, and perhaps even promoted in favor of marketing the upcoming card to them masses.
Ironically, this would be just one of the controversies of the presser with the latest further highlighting the ineptitude of both the CSAC and NYSAC.
This was most evident in the behavior of Ryan Garcia who despite literally still serving a suspension imposed by the NYSAC ― the same state he is set to fight in ―for the use of [the banned substance of] Ostarine showed absolutely no remorse for the actions that resulted in his suspension itself.
In fact, Garcia showed no remorse for the use of Ostarine and even accused Devin Haney of setting him up:
“I’m really focused on whooping Devin Haney’s a**, that’s all I’m worried about,” Garcia stated during the press conference.
“Just to not even redeem myself but cement that bulls*** f***ing Ostarine bulls*** ― which you [Haney] probably did set up. We know you did that. Is your little brother in the house? Cause we knew your brother knew before everybody else, and you don’t answer that question.“
In a bid to completely escape any sort of accountability, Garcia would change the subject towards Haney’s younger brother who had purportedly revealed in the build-up to the April 20nd fight between Haney and Garcia that he believed Garcia would test positive for performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).
This was done in a clear attempt by Ryan Garcia to diffuse his own wrongdoing that resulted in his suspension by the NYSAC for testing positive for Ostarine. This boils down to the NYSAC’s own inefficiency in clearly painting Garcia as a deliberate drug user with their sentence notably having been absent of any official statement that further failed to take into account Garcia’s behavior prior to sentencing which involved him blatantly lying about his result; claiming a “billionth of a gram” Ostarine had been discovered in his system despite his positive test showing the presence of Ostarine to be at least 60 times past the limit allowed ― which clearly indicates deliberate use.
Garcia would afterwards proclaim his innocence through hair follicle tests ― which are not used as the standard for detecting PEDs or regarded as a viable means to test for banned substances.
In a bid to proof his innocence, Garcia further sent opened packages of the supplements to a laboratory which supposedly led to his positive test for Ostarine. Not only was this a highly irregular occurence not met with any sort of repercussion by any relevant institution in boxing, but NutraBio who owned said supplements further debunked Garcia’s claims of their products containing Ostarine.
Oddly enough, the NYSAC’s inability to take all the above facts into account and not hand Garcia a steeper sentence while further refraining clearly delineating Garcia as a deliberate PED-user has allowed him to skate past what is a clear anti-doping offense.
The presser, which fell under CSAC’s jurisdiction, would allow Garcia to continue to peddle misinformation and lies surrounding his own sentence as a direct result of the NYSAC’s lack of transparency and direction to coherently point out Garcia’s trespasses.
CSAC’s inability to tackle these lies during the presser further paints a picture of at least two state athletic commission who do not appear to be up for the task of regulating any combat sports.
Riyadh Season is also liable in this regard given their role in blatantly ignoring Garcia’s offenses, matchmaking him on one of their cards and continuing to highlight the fighter as one of the main attractions of the upcoming card.
This also puts a cloud of uncertainty surrounding Riyadh Season head Turki Alalshikh’s planned venture to create a boxing league/promotion, with anti-doping violators and controversial incidents treated as normal and inconsequential. With no indication of how this new boxing league will be dealing with the many controversies that regularly occur in boxing, this further paints the picture of a venture that will be liable in the future to corruption, moral antipathy and unprofessionalism ― with the only difference to other boxing promotions or similar ventures being it will be better promoted and/or marketed.
