Ryan Garcia: Bad Head, Bad Heat

Ryan Garcia is the type of guy who can proudly proclaim that he’s “been cutting down” on his drinking, as he did in a recent Fight Hype video interview and, then, just a couple minutes later in the same video, take a big swig from a tall can of Heineken. He’s the type of guy who can call Devin Haney a “weight bully” with a straight face while failing to acknowledge his own gleeful weight bully behavior in his bout against against Haney, where he came in 3.2 lbs. over the 140 lb. limit and opted to pay Team Haney off rather than try to lose the weight.

To call the man a dichotomy is too kind. ‘Hypocrite’ is about right. Mentally defective phony is mean, but maybe most accurate.

Harsh, yeah…but, man, this 25-year-old’s teen angst is absolutely grating.

Ryan Garcia vs. The World

Garcia finished off the month of June with a shoeshine flurry of frenetic weirdo flailing. In recent days, the increasingly whiny and disagreeable fighter/influencer has carried out social media attacks on Caleb Plant, Caleb’s wife Jordan, Claressa Shields, Zab Judah, Devin Haney’s father Bill Haney, Ishe Smith, promoter Eddie Hearn, and even delivered a broadside attack on “Pride” month, which he described as satanic and as “pedo month.”

This is coming off the heels of a one-year suspension issued by the New York State Athletic Commission for having tested positive for the banned substance Ostarine prior to (and immediately after) his April 20 bout with Haney. In addition to the suspension, Garcia was forced to return his contractual purse of $1.1 million to promoter Golden Boy and pay a $10,000 fine to the commission. His majority decision win over the favored Haney was also overturned and declared a no contest.

Ever since then, the Victorville, California native, who had already become known for a bizarre and frequently unhinged social media presence all throughout the lead-in to the Haney fight and in its aftermath, has used his platforms to go extra dirty.

He’s become an absolute heat magnet with his flawed logic and juvenile attempts to skate responsibility for his failed PEDs tests. The incessant excuse making and lashing out at those who insist he man up and take responsibility has crossed over from annoying to ear-stabbing intolerable.

Ryan Gets Confronted

In a recent Twitter Spaces broadcast, Garcia was confronted by one of his latest targets, former world champ Ishe Smith, who’s been critical of Garcia’s response to his failed tests and subsequent suspension.

“When are you gonna stop playing and take accountability for the sh*t you do?” Smith demanded. “It’s everybody’s fault for you popping dirty. Everybody’s fault but yours. It don’t matter who gave you the steroid. You popped dirty, own up to it….Nobody set you up…First, it was the other guy from VADA, it was [Victor] Conte…You always point the finger, bro. Now, it’s Scooter [a strength and conditioning coach reportedly brought in by Garcia to help him make weight]. Now, it’s Zab [Judah], Zab has ties to Haney…Bro, just take accountability. Say, ‘You know what? I f*cked up. My bad. I took a bad supplement, it is what it is.’ Stop throwing other people under the bus. Just man up. Nobody wanna hear about all your excuses.”

The retired fighter, who Garcia repeatedly referred to as a journeyman and as a racist against Mexicans in the Spaces scuffle, went on to blast the young man about leaning on his professed Christianity while acting anything but Christ-like.

“You got this platform and you’re using it to proclaim your love for Christ, how you love Christ, you’re doing Christ’s work, ‘I’m for the kids,’ and in the same breath, you go tell a man ‘I f*ked your wife.’ Yesterday, you was telling me ‘I f*cked your mom,’”Smith blasted.

As lawsuits pile up from Garcia’s targets and apologies slowly come rolling out of the mouth of the embattled father of three, the young man continues his roll as an absolute heat magnet.

Bad Heat Mounting

Generally speaking, “heat” is good when it comes to promotion, but there are two types of heat– good heat and bad heat.

This is actually pro wrestling terminology. Good heat is the kind of nagging antagonism that makes you want to see a bad guy get his comeuppance. Bad heat, though, is off-putting nastiness that makes you say, “I just want this a**hole to go away.” The former will earn you big money over the long haul as a bankable heel. The latter will get you written off and ditched at the earliest possible opportunity.

Floyd Mayweather rode waves of good heat to about a billion dollars in earnings over the course of his career. Antonio Margarito, after his “Plaster Gate” heat, got a couple of big losing-end paydays, but became a boxing afterthought shortly thereafter.

Garcia, once upon a time regarded as a “good kid,” has become a weird and detestable character since someone, apparently, told him to ditch his self-censor and let the world know what REALLY was in his head.

Well, after catching glimpses of a Garcia brain-world full of Satanic ritual abuse, pedophilia obsession, conspiracy theories, Christianity lip service, sh*tty politics, and an almost ignorantly aggressive disregard for boxing norms and fair play, nobody sane wants to see what’s in his head anymore.

People are just tuning the kid out– when they’re not laughing outright at him. That, right there, is “bad heat.”

Garcia’s still got that almost superhuman rocket of a left hand– one of boxing’s best one-shot weapons– and enough time to turn things around inside his skull. But the turnaround only happens if someone drills some good sense into a head that’s already been stuffed with nonsense and covered with a protective helmet of entitlement from the enablers around him.