Teddy Atlas is upset about the idea of Ryan Garcia being allowed to fight Devin Haney given all the worrying signs of mental instability Garcia has shown in the build-up.
This fight in April will be Garcia’s second big step up following his fight with Gervonta Davis last April. That one ended with a body shot knockout and the build-up to this one has been marred by controversy and incident.
None of this is great preparation for a fight and now speaking on ProBox TV, former trainer turned pundit Teddy Atlas has a suggestion.
“Not only do I not think he should fight, if he fights, I will suggest the New York State Athletic Commission gets shut down, cause there is no point in having a commission with all the stuff we’ve seen, all the stuff that scares us, some people laugh they get stupid but it’s scary.
“He’s smoking weed, drinking a bottle of liquor, he’s talking about taking hallucinogenics, he’s saying he got kidnapped and took him into the woods and forced him to watch little kids. When you’re talking about a guy before a huge fight being in that kind of mental condition if you’re a commission and you do not force him to see qualified psychiatric people, to be evaluated by the right medical people, shut the commission down.”
Last week, Garcia threatened to sue the commission if they sent him for a mental evaluation.