‘You’re supposed to be my promoter not hater’ – Ryan Garcia clashes with Oscar De La Hoya again

Photo by Tom Hogan/Golden Boy/Getty Images

The 21-year-old lightweight boxing contender has been at odds with both DAZN and his own promoter, Oscar De La Hoya.

The drama surrounding Ryan Garcia’s career continues.

Garcia (20-0, 17 KOs) was slated to return to the ring on July 4th in a Golden Boy on DAZN card, but an inadequate purse offer of a reported $200,000 — his contracted minimum — did not interest him at all. As such, the 21-year-old rising lightweight contender will be on the shelf indefinitely while Golden Boy intends to return later in July with another undefeated prospect Vergil Ortiz (15-0, 15 KOs).

Oscar De La Hoya, Garcia’s promoter, made the Ortiz announcement on Monday but not before throwing Garcia under the bus.

That’s not even subtle. It’s Dana White’s “he doesn’t want to fight” line just written differently.

It didn’t take long for Garcia to hit back with a tweet of his own, although he’s since deleted it. No need to fear, as the screenshot is here! (H/T Bad Left Hook)

The tension between Garcia and Golden Boy has been well-documented dating back to last year. They seemingly smoothed things over when he signed a multi-year contract to remain with the promotion, but it took only two fights for things to unravel once more.

ESPN’s Steve Kim reported that “Garcia was asking for a payday that would be twice his minimum contracted amount, in the neighborhood of $500,000.”

$500,000 is a lot of money for someone who is no doubt a fast-rising talent, but has otherwise never fought a consensus top-10 opponent let alone competed for a world title. Still, the original offer was deemed “unacceptable” by his adviser, Lupe Valencia.

“This is the problem — it’s complicated, things are not irreparable right now,” Valencia said. “We’re going to get through this, but for this particular fight, Golden Boy asked DAZN to do a fight with a limited budget because of the whole COVID thing. My understanding was DAZN was planning to come back in September. Golden Boy wanted them to come back earlier and headline Ryan. My understanding is DAZN agreed to come back earlier with a limited budget.

“Our opinion was that we weren’t willing to come back earlier on the limited budget. That’s really the gist of it.”

As for Garcia’s return, Valencia says that’s up to DAZN and when they’re ready to proceed with a normal budget again.

Perhaps the bigger story at play here is that between the collapse of a 4th of July Ryan Garcia special and the apparent nixing of Regis Prograis vs. Maurice Hooker (in part) due to money, DAZN appears to be in some considerable trouble and the boxers are paying the price.