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Ryan Garcia put Devin Haney on the canvas three times officially and scored an upset win tonight in Brooklyn.
Garcia won by majority decision on scores of 112-112, 114-110, and 115-109. Because he failed to make weight on Friday, he did not win the WBC super lightweight title, which is now vacant because of Haney’s loss.
Bad Left Hook unofficially scored the fight 114-110 and 113-111 for Garcia on two cards.
Garcia (25-1, 20 KO) hurt Haney (31-1, 15 KO) early in the first round, but Haney seemed to get some control of the fight for several rounds after that.
In the seventh, everything went wild.
Garcia dropped Haney once, officially, and could have been credited with two more knockdowns in the round, but was not. Garcia was also penalized a point for hitting on the break, a cameraman got into the ring thinking it was over at one point, the DJ started playing music with a minute left in the round — it was truly one of the most bizarre and chaotic rounds you’ll ever see.
After that round, Haney never truly recovered. Garcia’s snapping left hook was a massive weapon, but his right hand played a key role in the fight, too. Haney was dropped again in the 10th and 11th rounds.
Garcia will struggle to get full credit for this win, and, it has to be said, fairly so. He did not make weight or come close to it on Friday, and it’s a fair criticism of him and his professionalism.
But when it’s all settled, he won the fight, and that is the thing the vast majority of people will most remember.
“Come on, guys, you really thought I was crazy?” Garcia said. “When I land (my left hook), it can put you out or down. You guys hate on me ‘cause I’m pretty and shit. Man, that’s fucked up! I’ve been boxing my whole life!”
“I just knew I had control, it’s hard to recover from big shots. Maybe my conditioning wasn’t my best, but I got the job done,” he added. Garcia said he’d be happy to do a rematch.
“I’m disappointed with my performance,” Haney said. “But I showed I’m a true champion and I can fight after being knocked down and hurt. He caught me early, caught me by surprised. We trained for (the left hook), but I got in there and I fell asleep, and he caught me with it.
“I was more surprised than hurt the first time. He jumped on me, like we knew he would, but I was just sleeping. I thought the ref let him turn his back and hold a little too much.”
Haney said he would also like a rematch, and said he did not regret going through with the fight after Garcia missed weight. Haney seems to also believe he’s still the WBC champion at 140, which he will soon find out is not true.
On the undercard:
- Arnold Barboza Jr was gifted a split decision win by two of the three judges over Sean McComb. McComb was a massive underdog here, but he deserved to win this fight. One judge had it for McComb (18-2, 5 KO) on a score of 98-92, and the other two awarded the fight to Barboza (30-0, 11 KO) on scores of 96-94 and 97-93. The crowd, which had been silent for the fight, booed the decision, and should have, because it was a bad one. This doesn’t really do anything positive for Barboza, other than it’ll keep him undefeated officially. He has already struggled for years to get any traction in his career even when he was winning legitimately.
- Bektemir Melikuziev improved to 14-1 (10 KO) with a technical decision win over Pierre Dibombe after eight rounds. The unknown Dibombe (22-1-1, 12 KO) gave a solid effort here, but it also wasn’t really competitive. The fight ended because of a cut on Melikuziev, a nasty one on his eyelid that he’d fought with for several rounds, which actually followed a pretty bad cut on Dibombe.
- David Jimenez earned a clear decision win over John “Scrappy” Ramirez to win the interim WBA super flyweight title. Jimenez (16-1, 11 KO) out-worked and out-fought a game Ramirez (13-1, 9 KO) to scores of 116-112, 117-111, and 117-111. Jimenez was simply the better fighter in this one, and the judges got it right.
- Charles Conwell returned for his first fight since 2022, and his first as as Golden Boy fighter, with a sixth round TKO win over Nathaniel Gallimore. Conwell (19-0, 14 KO) will hopefully stay more active now that he’s got solid backing, and pretty much did the job you’d expect here against Gallimore (22-8-1, 17 KO), whose gatekeeper career continues on as it has been.