Ryan Garcia and Devin Haney are both expected to weigh in the mid-160s tonight for their fight on DAZN PPV at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Ryan chose to fight fire with fire by bulking up to the mid-160s to give himself a chance against the naturally larger Haney, who some feel should be fighting at junior middleweight.
Haney: Master of Size Advantage
For Haney (31-0, 15 KOs), it’s the norm for him to be around 165 lbs because he’s viewed as a fighter who has made it a practice for many years to fight in weight classes below his size. Devin uses extreme weight manipulation to give himself an advantage over his opposition.
Reluctant to fight in divisions more suited to his larger frame, Haney has carved a nice career for himself by draining down to 135 and 140 to fight smaller opposition, and then rehydrating to have a big size advantage.
The difference in this fight is Ryan chooses to use the same tactic by coming in much heavier than usual. Garcia (24-1, 20 KOs) packed on a lot of weight for this fight in what some believe is a strategy to be the same size as the massive-sized Haney, and it cost him with his coming in over the 140-lb limit at 143.2 lbs at yesterday’s weigh-in.
Interestingly, Ryan says he doesn’t care that he missed weight, because his purpose for this fight is to win, not capture the WBC light welterweight title, which he doesn’t care about. The object behind this fight for Ryan is to win, and he doesn’t give a fig about Haney’s WBC strap.
Some believe Ryan’s decision to bulk up to the 160s will slow him down, and make it less likely that he wins. On the other hand, if Ryan hadn’t bulked up, he’d be giving away 10 to 15 lbs to the 165+ super middleweight-sized Haney tonight, and he’d have very little chance of winning.
I can understand why Ryan chose to add size and blow off, making weight, because he stands no chance of beating a fighter as heavy as Haney without using the same sneaky black hat tricks that Devin uses to win by being much bigger than his opposition.
The Calls for Change
Ideally, WBC needs to follow the IBF’s lead by having a strict 10-lb rehydration limit to prevent fighters like Haney from using his size to take advantage of smaller opposition. If they did that, it would make things fairer, and you wouldn’t have to see guys like Ryan Garcia needing to use the same tactics just to have a chance of winning.
“The New York State Athletic Commission should be ashamed of themselves that they’re letting this fight go on without proper evaluation,” said boxing expert Teddy Atlas to Stephen A. Smith’s YouTube channel, talking about the Devin Haney vs. Ryan Garcia fight.
“Where he’s posting so many things where he seems to be crying for help, there’s something wrong,” Atlas continued about Ryan. “With all the evidence of his behavior over the last two months, I don’t know how the commission sanctions this.
