By: Sean Crose
The good news is that Ryan Garcia appears to still be alive. The bad news is that the famous boxer’s behavior over the past week has started to make people really concerned.
“SUNDAY MARCH 3, 2024 we slit RG’s throat,” a post on Garcia’s .” What follows is some ramblings about ghosts and a confusing video that doesn’t show much. Although there have been welcome reports from Garcia’s father that his son is simply ineffective trolling, Garcia’s ex-wife, Andrea Celina, made a rather alarming statement on social media before weekend ends.
“If all my followers are believers, can you pray for Ryan,” Celina said. “We’re not together and I’ve been in contact with him and he might feel fine but in reality he’s not. I know deep down he is being severely oppressed. This is not a troll, I’m really worried and so are all his family members. We are not into any of this and want him to get well but this is REAL. Pray for him.”
Garcia, who is scheduled to fight welterweight contender Devan Haney on April 20, led the boxing community on a very strange journey leading up to the fight. First, he announced that he wanted the fight to take place in Vegas after it became clear the fight would be held at Brooklyn’s Barclay’s Center. He later appeared in a video smoking what appeared to be marijuana while laughing loudly about his height.
Fast forward to last Thursday in Los Angeles, where Garcia appeared at a press conference to promote the Haney fight an hour late and riding a white horse. He then went on to publicly say that he liked to drink and smoke weed (although he argued that he did not use cocaine). But Garcia wasn’t done there. On Saturday, the young Californian posted, among other things, this statement regarding Jake Paul: “Okay, it’s time for me to do this! I’m almost at the end of this JAKE PAUL PACKAGING THING. BRING IT ON JAKE I’M FUCKING DEAD SERIOUS IN YOUR FACE! COME ON MY TEAM.”
And then comes Sunday’s post.
At this point, it’s hard to tell whether Garcia is trying to hype up the April 20 fight in a way that’s now highly inappropriate or if the fighter is legitimately suffering from some emotional issues before the whole world. Either way, here’s hoping the man gains some clarity.
