Sometime in May, second week. He is knee-deep in the doping fiasco. But Ryan Garcia instructs his legal team to reach out to ‘Errol nocents’ with an offer. The two had already been exchanging barbs, much to everyone’s amusement. No doubt, a fight between one of boxing’s biggest superstars and a former unified champion makes for an exciting match-up. However, the way things stand, the match doesn’t show any sign of turning up, at least not anytime soon. Errol Spence Jr. reportedly has a fight in hand against Sebastian Fundora. ‘KingRy’, on the other hand, despite his team’s best efforts, finds himself facing the regulatory supervision of the New York State Athletic Commission.
But the whole episode also makes it clear where his intentions lie once he’s back to business. Vergil Ortiz Jr.‘s latest tweet on Ryan Garcia reportedly being willing to enter the ring as a replacement for Tim Tszyu rather lends weight to it. The unbeaten KO specialist seems quite enthused by the prospect. But not everyone seems taken up by the idea. In fact, ‘KingRy’ has now received a word caution. Don’t make a foolhardy move!
Tagging Ryan Garcia, Vergil Ortiz Jr. shared that he is looking forward to a dance. The former interim lightweight champion shouldn’t disappoint him. The unbeaten boxer said, “@RyanGarcia I got a call saying you wanna step in and replace Tim. I already gave my manager, @RGMPROMO, the green light to make it happen.“
As most fans might be aware, the Grand Prairie, Texas-born boxer had a fight scheduled against Tim Tszyu for the WBA (interim) light middleweight title. The fight was one of the main cards of the Terence Crawford–Israil Madrimov-headlined mega show held under the auspices of His Excellency Turki Alalshikh and his team at Riyadh Season. Unfortunately, the fight had to be cancelled. Physicians refused to clear the Aussie boxer fit for fighting. Reportedly, he needed more time to recuperate from the head injury he sustained during the March 30 title clash against Sebastian Fundora.
However, the tweet apparently caught boxing matchmaker Rick Glaser‘s attention. Wasting time, he said, “#RyanGarcia giving his team the green light to negotiate a fight with #VergilOrtiz for the August 3 show in #LA. That’s like signing your own death warrant, going all the way up to 154, & fighting a KO artist like Vergil!!! Ortiz is not Haney!!! #RiyadhSeason #Boxing.“
Most of the users who followed his tweet seemingly agreed. Vergil Ortiz Jr. is a different beast all together. However, given the fact that, like Devin Haney, Ryan Garcia fought Ortiz Jr., also in the amateurs, a professional fight stands every chance of becoming a huge crowd puller.
Relief or Rumble, Ryan Garcia Awaits
But it all boils down to how the young Californian pulls himself out of the latest controversy. The way things stand, testing conducted on his B sample vindicated the findings of the primary testing on samples taken a day before and on the day of the fight with Devin Haney. However, the development saw ‘KingRy’s team take measures to counter the fallback. The young boxer’s hair samples were independently tested. His representatives later claimed that they returned negative results.
The next move saw Team Garcia submit two supplement samples to be checked for ‘Ostarine’. As it happened, the results came back positive, thus lending more weight to the team’s proposition that the banned substance entered Garcia’s body through ‘supplement contamination’. Now the New York State Athletic Commission will have to decide. Ryan Garcia and his team could be hoping for some leniency in relation to a ban on his boxing license. Fans are eagerly watching as this story moves towards its final leg.
