Today, Ryan Garcia and lightweight contender Oscar Duarte kicked off the media obligations for their junior welterweight fight on December 2nd taking place at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas.
As with most press conferences nowadays, the main talking point was not the fight itself, but something that could happen in the future. In this case, it is what Ryan Garcia might do next if he were to beat Duarte. It has been rumored that a February fight date between Ryan Garcia and Teofimo Lopez at the Sphere in Las Vegas, Nevada, is a fight that interests Garcia.
“Teofimo, he has been talking his ass off, and his dad, too,” said Garcia in a media scrum after Wednesday’s press conference. “I think Teofimo mentions me a lot because I just think that whole lead-up is going to be crazy.”
The stakes of the fight for Garcia are obvious. Win and get another huge payday and fight. Lose and reconsider what is going on with his career. Recently, he moved to Texas after leaving Joe Goossen, his trainer of the past couple of years, to work with Derrick James. This will be Garcia’s first fight with James, a trainer who is on a recent losing skid after Errol Spence Jr., and Jermell Charlo both had lackluster performance in pay-per-view main events, in which both fighters lost. Anthony Joshua won with James but also did not look like the Joshua of old, albeit James is probably not the culprit of that.
Garcia further stated what the future holds for him in this ten-minute superstar-type scrum.
“There a lot of big fights for me,” stated Garcia.
It appears if everything goes well, and Garcia has a choice of his next opponent - his first choice appears to be Teofimo Lopez as he appeared very keen on stating that he enjoyed the potential ‘chaos’ that the build-up could create. It appears that Garcia sees more of an entertainment value in Teofimo Lopez as opposed to Devin Haney, though he didn’t rule out Haney as well.
“I like the Teofimo [fight] because it just would be more chaotic,” said Garcia. “Then again, Devin Haney has been talking a lot of [expletive] lately, too! I don’t know, either/or.”
Though Teofimo Lopez seemed to be the name that captured Garcia's attention the most, others mentioned such as Devin Haney, and a rematch with Gervonta Davis were also brought up.
I’m interested in all of them,” stated Garcia. "“I feel like under different circumstances, I could beat [Gervonta Davis], but also, Devin Haney, we have a long history in the amateurs."
