The highly anticipated boxing match on Saturday between Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia hit a snag on Friday after Garcia missed the fight weight. And it turns out, the weight miss will cost Garcia even more than some may realize.
Garcia weighed in at 143 pounds on Friday for the super lightweight title fight. This means that Garcia will be ineligible to receive Haney’s WBC super lightweight title even with a win.
Perhaps even worse for Garcia is that he will owe Haney $1.5 million thanks to a pre-fight bet the two made. In a press conference before the fight, Haney proposed that each pound that one fighter weighs over the 140-pound limit would result in $500,000 going to the other fighter. Garcia agreed, and it seemingly backfired in a very financially costly way.
When discussing the bet and his weight miss, Garcia confirmed that he would pay Haney for the bet, but that he was not sorry about the weight miss, even if it comes off as a bit unprofessional.
“At the end of the day, my last fight was at 143,” Garcia said on Twitter Spaces. “That’s all my body could completely get down to. My body absolutely cannot get lower than 143. There is nothing I could have done unless I killed myself. My team can speak for me. Did we or did we not try our hardest? All night working, trying to make the weight. But again, I’m not going to kill myself over the scale. The only thing I’ll sacrifice my life for is for Jesus Christ, not the scale.”
Will the weight miss affect Garcia’s performance in the ring? We will find out on Saturday. But it has to be a bit demoralizing to be going into the fight already knowing that you owe your opponent a substantial amount of money.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.