Ryan Garcia’s social media blitz amps up pressure for Devin Haney fight

Image: Ryan Garcia's social media blitz amps up pressure for Devin Haney fight
By Raj Parmar - 12/28/2023 - Comments

Ryan Garcia, showing his eagerness for a fight against WBC light welterweight champion Devin Haney, posted a picture of him and Dev inside the ring on social media, telling his 11 million followers that this will be his seventh fight against the Bay Area native.

One poster on Twitter noted that the 25-year-old Ryan Garcia is literally “begging” for the fight with Haney with the way he’s repeatedly been posting on the fight today, which is currently at three. Ryan is definitely showing that he’s needful, and Haney isn’t discouraging him.

“This will actually be the 7th fight between us. It’s only right on the professional stage. It’s time to rumble,” said Ryan Garcia on Twitter, talking about his proposed fight against Devin Haney.

You’d like to think that the reason for Ryan’s heavy pursuit of a fight against Haney is to break their 3-3 tie, but this has money as his true rationale.

Of all the fighters at 140, Haney is Ryan’s biggest payday, not that he’s a PPV fighter, but because King’s 11 million Instagram followers will be eager to watch him fight for a world title. Many of them are teenagers and not followers of boxing.

Rather, they’re into Ryan, so it doesn’t matter which champion he fights. He could face any belt holder, and they’d be just as excited.

What makes this different is that Ryan will likely post more on social media because he’s interested in this fight, and that, in turn, will get his non-boxing fan followers amped up and wanting to see it.

Ryan & Haney still need to get their fight negotiated, and it’s still too early to know if the two will be able to agree to terms to make this fight a reality.

After his reportedly low PPV numbers for his fight against Regis Prograis on December 9th, Haney needs this fight to give him a big payday and to help his popularity.

Without Ryan, the unbeaten former undisputed lightweight champion Haney (31-0, 15 KOs) would have to fend with the true talents at 140, like Subriel Matias, Teofimo Lopez, Gary Antuanne Russell and Sandor Martin.

If not for Ryan coming through to save the day, Haney likely would likely vacate his WBC 140-lb belt and move up to 147 in search of bigger paydays and to make it easier on him to make weight. Haney is killing himself to make the 140-lb limit.

Rehydrating to 165 is a clear signal that Devin needs to move up to 147 as soon as possible because it’s risky to lose 25 lbs of water.