Ryan Garcia signals Devin Haney to make his move

Image: Ryan Garcia signals Devin Haney to make his move
By Robert Segal - 12/20/2023 - Comments

Ryan Garcia has let WBC light welterweight champion Devin Haney know that it’s his move next after he’s committed himself to fight him.

The social media King, Ryan Garcia, is the A-side for a fight with Haney and is just a belt-holder at 140 and likely not one for much longer.

Trying to put this fight together could be a nightmare, especially since Devin believes he’s risen to superstar status after beating a pair of 35-year-olds in his last two fights.

It’s reasonable to assume that Haney will be intractable in talks for a fight with Ryan, believing his championship status is valuable. It doesn’t. Haney is just a paper champion, holding a trinket belt that won’t help him get a better deal.

Will promoters cough up the dough?

It’s unclear what Ryan (24-1, 20 KOs) wants in the negotiations with Haney (31-0, 15 KOs) because he’s technically the challenger now.

Haney’s dismal 50K PPV buy numbers for his fight against WBC 140-lb champion Regis Prograis on December 9th equates to him being the B-side for a fight against the 25-year-old Ryan, who currently has 10.4 million followers on Instagram.

It might take a miracle to get the Ryan Garcia vs. Devin Haney fight made because they need to agree, and the promoters & network have to be willing to give guarantee purses that these two would.

It’s unlikely that the two fighters will be willing to take small guarantees upfront and need to gamble that they’ll make their dough from the PPV sales.

Haney can’t sell

If you’re Ryan, you need to open your eyes and look at Haney’s 50K PPV sales for his fight with Prograis as a signal for what he could be dealing with. Ryan needs to know what he’s getting himself into by fighting Haney because he’s never proven himself capable of selling PPV.

For some reason, fans don’t connect with Haney the way they did with a fighter with a similar safety-first style, Floyd Mayweather Jr. It could be that fans no longer enjoy watching runners and that even if Floyd were in his prime fighting now, he couldn’t bring in the type of PPV numbers he enjoyed during his era.

Fans expect to be entertained, and it’s important to remember because they’re being asked to pay $75 to watch a typical pay-per-view boxing event. They don’t want to pay that kind of dough to watch Haney running from Ryan for twelve boring rounds, which is probably what the fight will wind up being.

If this fight doesn’t sell, Ryan will be crying crocodile tears because he’s likely to lose the fight and further erode his marketability for future fights, particularly the one he wants in a rematch with Gervonta Davis.

It’s a gamble on Ryan’s part to take this fight because it might not make him the kind of money that he enjoyed in his fight against Gervonta Davis.

Ryan would be better off continuing to fight lesser opposition, padding his record with victories over cans, and waiting for Tank Davis to give him the lucrative rematch. It’s important that Ryan not take another loss while waiting for that fight because he’ll be heading for journeyman status if he continues to get beaten.

With Ryan’s social media following, he can make good dough fighting virtually anybody, and he doesn’t need to face someone who can’t sell like Haney, who outclass him in a one-sided bout.

Haney has his WBC mandatory defense that is due against Sandor Martin, and he’ll need to give him a step aside unless the World Boxing Council comes up with a good reason for him to sidestep his responsibility.

If all else fails, Devin can always ask the WBC to make him the Franchise champion, allowing him to permanently ignore Sandor.