Devin Haney believes that Ryan Garcia is trying to “escape” from their April 20th fight because he wants the venue to be switched from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, to the MGM in Las Vegas.
Thus far, Ryan hasn’t said anything about pulling out of his April 20th fight with Haney. He just wants the venue changed from Brooklyn, New York to Las Vegas at the MGM.
Garcia Pushes for Business Sense
Ryan (24-1, 20 KOs) says he wants the fight to be staged in Las Vegas for “business” reasons, and he feels that it would be the “best move” for his career.
He’s probably right, as staging his fight against WBC light welterweight champion Haney (31-0, 15 KOs) will create massive attention in Las Vegas, and that’s where the promoters should have scheduled it.
According to Dan Rafael, PBC didn’t want to “allow” the Haney vs. Garcia fight to be close to the May 4th date in Las Vegas because Canelo Alvarez is supposed to be fighting on that date in that city. They don’t want another big fight, like Haney-Garcia, to cannibalize ticket sales by having their event too close to Canelo’s.
Devin Haney: This dude is planning his escape. The reason the fight not happening n vegas is because they don’t wanna affect Canelo ticket sales.
Ryan Garcia: This is a MGM Vegas fight, doing everything we can to bring this to Vegas and giving this fight what it deserves!!! This decision has nothing to do with NYC, but everything to do with business and what I believe is the best move for my career,” said Kingry on X.
The Venue Battleground
“For this particular date of April 20th, it’s in close proximity to May 4th, which is the date PBC has blocked out for Canelo Alvarez,” said boxing expert Dan Rafael to Boxing News about the Haney vs. Garcia fight. If anyone knows about venue deals and how they work.
“The promoter and the host usually have a blackout period before their big event because they don’t want somebody taking an event or a venue two weeks, three weeks. It’s usually three weeks, I think, ahead of their event, which will cannibalize their potential ticket sales.
“So, the PBC people, to my understanding, did not want to allow that fight [Haney vs. Garcia] to be at the MGM Grand or the T-Mobile Arena, which are the two arenas that the MGM folks control. The Mandalay Bay also, but that’s a much smaller arena. It probably wouldn’t be large enough to host this fight.
“That’s only 10-12,000 packed in. The T-Mobile is 20, the MGM is 18. So, they got blocked out by PBC having that date [May 4th],” said Rafael.