Ryan Garcia achieved a momentous victory on April 20th after defeating Devin Haney in a non-title super lightweight bout, but the aftereffects of his victory remain clouded given Garcia’s antics prior to the match. During a recent appearance on the PBD Podcast, Garcia admitted to having faked his behavior on social media to gain an advantage in the ring against Haney, which subsequently made Haney more aggressive and resulted in him being knocked down multiple times to eventually lose by majority decision.
While “trolling” appears to be a modern-day trend perpetuated on the internet, Ryan Garcia (25-1, 20 KO’s) revealed his own attempts at trolling was but a decoy to throw off Devin Haney (31-1, 15 KO’s), and grant Garcia the advantage of being underestimated.
“If I’m being quite honest, it wasn’t so much like my idea, it was more just wisdom coming from God and then I just made adjustments as I went,” Garcia said on the PBD Podcast. “I would have strong, I guess feelings, or just urges from the Holy Spirit to do this, or to do that, and God always cleaned up what I was doing I felt like I had the enemy pushing me to do certain things.
“They [Devin Haney’s team] underestimated me because of social media. When you can make anything look a certain way on social media, they fooled themselves. I also fooled [Las] Vegas as well. Now they need to put into consideration we cannot be looking at social media to maneuver our odds because obviously they just got fooled.“
Ryan Garcia went on to admit that he bet $2 million on himself by using Vegas’ steep betting odds―that saw him depicted as a heavy underdog―against them in order to earn roughly six times as much, which brings with it its own ramifications. Though athletes are allowed to bet on themselves in the state of Nevada, New York―where the Haney-Garcia fight was held―holds different rules; which might mean there will be consequences for Garcia depending on where he made his bet.
Ryan Garcia further spoke on the exact reasoning and tactics for his antics on social media, and revealed that most of his antics that he filmed were pre-recorded.
“We had it pre-recorded months ago,” Garcia said. “I said, ‘I’m about to make sure everybody thinks I’m crazy’. I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that. I have it all documented.
“I don’t know what made me come up with the idea, honestly, I just one day decided to go all-in and just commit to a plan that I had. And I was not going to budge for anybody. I was acting sporadic, like just crazy.
“What was real though was that at times I did drink a little bit during camp because I like to drink.“
With Ryan Garcia now claiming most of his antics were faked and meant to fool others, Devin Haney and his team seemed to have been the main target of his antics, and did impact Haney’s style of fighting which likely led to his majority decision (MD) loss.
Though Haney is often regarded as defensively responsible and prone to attacking from range rather than in the pocket, Garcia’s antics made Haney more willing to engage with Garcia on the inside; which would turn out to be a detriment as Haney was officially knocked down at least thrice during his match―which tilted the eventual result in favor of Garcia.
While Garcia did spark a lot of controversy with his antics and him missing weight resulted in him not winning any title, the American super lightweight’s popularity seems to have surged following his win, opening him up to new and more opportunities that he may not have had prior. On a competitive basis, it would not be too surprising to see Garcia land a title opportunity against the likes of Mexican WBA champion Isaac Cruz (26-2-1, 18 KO’s) or fellow American Teofimo Lopez (20-1, 13 KO’s) who is similarly regarded as a controversial figure in boxing―which might make for an intriguing and money-making fight.
