By Barry Holbrook: Former interim WBC lightweight champion Ryan Garcia reports that his right-hand surgery was successful on Monday. The undefeated, highly ranked 135-lb contender Garcia (21-0, 18 KOs) plans on returning to the ring in early 2022 to resume his stalled-out career.
The Golden Boy promoted ‘King Ry’ Garcia, 23, suffered his hand injury while sparring in preparation for a November 27th headliner fight on DAZN against fellow stablemate former IBF super featherweight champion Joseph ‘Jojo’ Diaz Jr.
Next year, it’s possible that Ryan and Jojo Diaz could still fight at some point, but it’s likely will need to be in the second half of 2022. Diaz (32-1-1, 15 KOs) is not the type of opponent Ryan Garcia should face coming off an injury and a long layoff over a year.
The young Garcia last fought in January 2021 when he defeated 2012 Olympic gold medalist Luke Campbell by a seventh round knockout.
It was a mixed performance in which Ryan struggled early on and then came on strong at the fight’s midpoint to hurt Campbell before stopping him in the seventh.
Surgery was a success🔥 thank you for the support, I’m very happy pic.twitter.com/xFb3WUSOm8
— RYAN GARCIA (@RyanGarcia) October 19, 2021
The rangy 5’9″ southpaw Campbell surprisingly dropped Garcia hard with a straight left to the head in the second round.
It wasn’t a flash knockdown. Ryan was genuinely hurt from the shot and was fortunate that Campbell didn’t try and go or the kill after he got back to his feet.
Most fighters would have attempted to get Ryan out of there if they’d hurt him as bad as Campbell did, but he lucked out with the British fighter, choosing to box the remainder of the second round.
When Ryan does resume his career, he needs to stay active because he’s not fighting often enough. For a young fighter like the 23-year-old Ryan to be sitting idle for a year, there’s no excuse for that.
Up until recently, Garcia was healthy, and he could have fought at least once.
Indeed, Golden Boy Promotions had Ryan scheduled to face Javier Fortuna in a WBC 135-lb title eliminator on July 9th, only to see him bow out with an anxiety problem.
Hopefully, Ryan has seen the last of his anxiety issues because he can’t afford to be out of action for non-injury problems at this point in his career.
Ryan is in an excellent position to be a major player at 135 after IBF/WBA/WBO lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez vacates his three belts in 2022 to go up to 140.
With three titles falling vacant, Ryan can go after one of the vacated belts, and he would have an excellent shot at winning as long as he’s not matched against a dangerous lightweight like Vasily Lomachenko or Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis.