By Sean Jones: Top Rank boss had talks with Golden Boy Promotions head guys Oscar De La Hoya and Eric Gomez on Thursday about a mega-fight between Teofimo Lopez and Ryan Garcia.
According to ESPN, Arum wants the Teofimo to fight ‘King ‘ Ryan before the end of 2021 in a massive fight.
Arum wants Ryan Garcia to take on Javier Fortuna next, while Teofimo (16-0, 12 KOs) defends against his IBF mandatory George Kambosos Jr.
The easy part of Arum’s idea is for Teofimo to defend against Kambosos (19-0, 10 KOs), who is out of his league talent-wise. But the difficult thing would be to get Ryan Garcia to agree to a fight against a dangerous Fortuna (36-2-1, 25 KOs).
Ryan looked so awful in his last fight against Luke Campbell; it would be asking the impossible for him to defeat a guy with Fortuna’s experience and talent. The former WBA super featherweight champion Fortuna at 31, and he’s hungry.
With Ryan talking about wanting to fight Pacquiao, which isn’t going to happen, and Gervonta ‘Tank Davis,’ would be let down for him to face Fortuna. I don’t see Ryan beating Fortuna. Arum should know this as well, which is why it’s not a great idea.
Eric Gomez says Pacquiao vs. Ryan Garcia NOT happening
Ryan would obviously have to forget about fighting Manny Pacquiao in an exhibition, a fight that Eric Gomez already ruled out. He says the Pacquiao – Ryan fight is NOT happening.
“There is nothing to talk about, that fight is not going to take place,” Eric Gomez told ESPN Knockout on Friday about the Pacquiao vs. Ryan Garcia exhibition NOT happening. “There is nothing concrete, I do not see possibilities [of a Pacquiao vs. Garcia exhibition].”
“Teofimo’s is more feasible, it’s more feasible and it’s one of the fights that Ryan Garcia is obviously interested in.”
If Arum wants Ryan Garcia (21-0, 18 KOs) to meet up with Teofimo later this year with his perfect record intact, Golden Boy needs to match the 22-year-old against someone beatable for him in his preliminary fight. Putting Ryan in with Fortuna is a bad idea.
Good options for Ryan’s interim fight:
- Lee Selby
- Liam Walsh
- Zaur Abdullaev
- Josh O’Reilly
Ryan Garcia needs non-punchers basically because we saw what Campbell was able to do against him on January 2nd. If a guy with no power like Campbell could put Ryan on the deck, imagine what a slugger like Fortuna would do.
“It would have to be this year,” Arum said to ESPN. “Because after that, Teofimo is going up to fight the winner of Taylor-Ramirez.”
Hopefully, Golden Boy breaks the news to Ryan slowly about him not getting the fight against Pacquiao. We don’t want Ryan to have a tantrum when he finds out he’s not getting the exhibition match against the 42-year-old.