Oscar De La Hoya was in attendance for Ryan Garcia’s open media workout and spent some time talking to reporters about Garcia’s preparedness for his April 20 fight with Devin Haney, and how he’d be very interested in the idea of Garcia vs Pitbull afterwards. A fight against Rolly Romero, though? Not so much.
De La Hoya on how Garcia looked at his media workout
“I love it. He’s looking sharp, he’s looking crisp. His punches are snapping, they’re lightning fast. I like what I see.”
On what advice he’d give Garcia to beat Haney if the fight goes to the second half
“Just stay focused. You have 12 rounds to try to accomplish either getting a knockout or just getting a win. Just go out there and take care of business. All the hard work has been done in the gym.
“Fighters, when they go out and fight, and they come back to corner and they’re breathing, and then they feel tired and they feel the have to kind of slow down. No. Just take a few breaths and go out there and fight hard again. You trained so hard for 12 rounds for that moment, make sure your head is on straight. Make sure that you know that you trained hard. Make sure that when you go to fight that you’re confident enough that you’re going to fight 12 hard rounds. That’s it.”
On his thoughts on a potential Garcia vs Pitbull fight with advisor Sean Gibbons reportedly expressing interest
“I would love it. It would be a fun fight and it would be a pleasure to work with Manny Pacquiao, it would be a pleasure to work with Sean Gibbons. And I feel that fight can really get made easily, it really can. So, yeah, I would look forward to that.”
On a potential Garcia vs Rolly Romero fight
“Nah, it’s done. I thin Rollies is exposed. That’s it. Look, I liked him as a person. When I talked to him he would be polite and nice, but now all the crap that he said about me about whatever, I don’t respect him. But as a fighter inside the ring he just got exposed, again. So there’s nothing there to even work with, with Ryan and Rollies.”