Ryan Garcia is riding on the crest of a wave – but fragility isn’t far away.
The 23-year-old star shone just last weekend as he ousted a former world champion inside the distance.
Garcia (23-0, 19 KOs) dropped ex-WBA super-featherweight champion Javier Fortuna three times last Saturday night at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles en route to a sixth-round stoppage.
But the brash, confident youngster, who has one of the biggest social followings in the sport, admits that he has been an easy target of critics who are not sold on him as a genuine fighter.
Garcia, who clearly has detractors who are not big fans of his personality, when speaking to Steve Bunce on the BBC 5 Live Boxing podcast, he said:
“I feel like the more I win, the more those people sound delusional,”
“The more I win, the more deluded they’ll be and the further away from the reality of the matter they will go.
“What it does to me is it fuels my fire even more. I don’t even need more fire to fuel me. But for some reason, most of the time, I take it personally. Most of the time, I wear a chip on my shoulder for that reason.”
Garcia, who took a break from boxing to concentrate on his mental health in the aftermath of his January 2021 win over Britain’s former Olympic champion Luke Campbell, wore white trunks for his demolition of Fortuna recently and had the waistband emblazoned with a sponsored logo by Christian Dior, the luxury fashion brand, with whom it now seems he has a partnership.
He signed a deal with Gatorade last year to become the first American fighter endorsed by the iconic sporting drink and is signed to IMG Models, a talent and modelling agency.
‘King Ry’ rocked the microphone shortly after his win over Fortuna and called out WBA ‘regular’ lightweight champion Gervonta Davis and it’s a fight that ‘Tank’s’ promoter, Floyd Mayweather, has said can happen – providing Garcia can get back to lightweight, having boxed closer to 140 pounds last time out.
The jibe about the potential weight for the contest is something that got on the nerves of Garcia somewhat, prompting him to hit back at Mayweather by confirming that he will adhere to anything demanded of him to make the showdown with the 27-year-old Baltimore southpaw.
“A lot of these things people are saying are benefitting me at the end of the day.
“If they really look at it, it’s either giving me more attention or it’s fuelling my fire.
“Honestly, I see it as jealousy and enviousness because they can’t comprehend that I can do everything.
“Whatever I do, I try my best at and I’ll be good at it or I’ll figure it out. I think they’re envious of that. They don’t want a guy who’s on top of everything.”