Ryan Garcia is back to winning ways, and he has a hit-list of opponents he wants to face in the future.
‘King Ry’ returned to the ring on Saturday to take on Oscar Duarte, in what was his first outing since his stoppage defeat against Gervonta Davis back in April.
Garcia was dropped twice by ‘Tank’ during that PPV showdown in Las Vegas, and looked keen to prove to fans that he’s still a force to be reckoned with when he stepped in the ring with Duarte.
After taking a few rounds to adapt to his opponent’s style, a barrage of shots from Garcia in round eight sent a hurt Duarte down on his knee and the referee waved the fight off.
Despite now campaigning at super-lightweight, before the fight Garcia was making it clear that he still wanted to face his rivals one division down. In an interview with The Last Stand, he detailed his issues with Shakur Stevenson.
“He’s just an arrogant person and he’s arrogant in real life. That’s why I don’t like him. I don’t say that about a lot of people. I love a lot of people, I’m cool with everybody, but that guy has just been ticking me off since the amateurs.
“I want to just kick his a**. Now it’s enough of the talking. If he wants that I’ll beat his a**. I’m tired of him. He talks s**t, it’s not entertaining, he takes everything personal. If you want to take it personal we can take it personal.
“I don’t like to do that, but he’s so arrogant that it’s to the point that I’ve got to whoop his a*. It will be a different motivation, he can’t run with me, he’s not going to throw no punches we’re going to worry about. All I’ve got to worry about is are the fans going to be entertained because this motherf***er is going to be running.”
Stevenson was last in action in November, defeating Edwin De Los Santos by unanimous decision to claim the vacant WBC lightweight title, but received criticism from some onlookers for producing a lacklustre performance.