“They’re Backing This Guy To Beat Me.” Ryan Garcia Speaks Out Against Oscar De La Hoya and Bernard Hopkins

By: Sean Crose

Things are obviously not going well at Golden Boy Promotions. When one of your star fighters is very publicly confronting your two head honchos at a press conference, there’s reason for concern. And indeed, Ryan Garcia confronted both Oscar De La Hoya and Bernard Hopkins on Thursday at the final press conference for this weekend’s bout between himself and the hard hitting Oscar Duarte Jurado in Houston. Things apparently came to a head earlier this week when co-promoter Hopkins, via Fight Hype, stated: “I will see how Ryan looks and then make my personal decision on whether he should fight again.”

“One thing that’s been on my heart,” Garcia said after stepping up to the podium on Thursday, “are the statements that Bernard made, where he’ll decide if I should continue boxing after this fight. He don’t decide that. My coach does. My team does. Everybody that grinds with me day in and day out, that’s who decides, and ultimately God decides, not him. Nobody was telling him when to stop boxing, he stopped boxing at 45. Kudos to him but he don’t determine that.”

The junior welterweight then turned his ire on De La Hoya. “Oscar’s saying we misinterpret what they say,” Garcia stated. “It’s plain English. I didn’t hear anybody speaking any language I don’t know. It’s very clear to me that they’re backing this guy (Jurado) to beat me, just like they thought (Romero) Duro was going to beat me. He was the next Filipino star, (now) they saying he’s (Jurado is) the next Mexican star. I put everything into this fight. For the first time I’m extremely committed in a long time.” Garcia then focused once more on Hopkins.

“Bernard said he’d never lose to a white boy,” he said, “then Joe Smith Jr knocked him out of the ring. Last time I checked, Joe Smith Junior is white.”

De La Hoya later indicated to Fight Hub that he found Garcia’s behavior childish. “When you’re dealing with kids,” he said, “it’s really hard to get across that message, and then you have Ryan saying this and that. It’s all B.S.” Garcia, one of the most popular fighters in the world, was defeated by Gervonta Davis his last time in the ring. Still, the loss to Davis is the only loss to be found on the hard hitting Californian’s resume. His fight with Jurado will be broadcast live Saturday night on the DAZN streaming service.