Ryan Garcia and Devin Haney are like a persistent infection: irritating and sickening and maddening. They went somewhat dormant for a time but never quite disappeared. Any sense of relief on our end would only be short-lived without rehabilitation on theirs.
Now Garcia and Haney have reemerged – though not yet returned. This latest case is threatening to break out into something as bad as, or potentially even worse, than the first.
Much of that was because of Garcia. He constantly seeks attention on social media. He says so many wrong things. He does so many wrong things. All while believing he is never in the wrong. And that he is always the one being wronged. It was reasonable to wonder about Garcia’s mental health, to wonder whether the fight would go forward and if it even should.
He made it to the scales – though Garcia came in a few pounds overweight, and seemingly intentionally so.
And he made it to the ring – though the fight itself was a mess. Full of drama, yes, but a mess. A car crash, with all of us as rubberneckers.
Garcia won a majority decision, and that could have been it. We could have moved on, left this all behind as just another regretful set of episodes in a sport full of them. Then came even more episodes, extending the miniseries longer than expected. And soon there will be a second season.
So much happened that it would be impossible to list it all, if one could even remember it all. Here are some of the highlights, or rather the lowlights:
Garcia tested positive for a banned performance enhancing drug called ostarine, which helps athletes lose weight without losing muscle mass.
Garcia tried to win in the court of public opinion even while the only verdict that mattered would come from the New York State Athletic Commission.
Garcia said he couldn’t have tested positive given that earlier tests had been negative. But test results can depend on what substances are taken and when, how much of the substance is taken, when the testing is done, and when those substances are released into blood and urine after having their desired effects elsewhere in the body.
Garcia then contradicted his other arguments by saying he had taken tainted supplements. That wasn’t proven, though, because his team failed to follow the standard protocol. Instead of sending in sealed supplements from the same batch Garcia used, they sent an opened version that could have been tampered with. That didn’t help his case. Nor could it have helped his case. That’s because Garcia never disclosed to the athletic commission that he was using supplements – a disclosure required by law.
Garcia tried to blame the positive tests on the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association, which organized the additional drug testing for Haney-Garcia beyond the commission’s testing, a service that VADA often provides for major fights. Garcia sought to draw a connection between Victor Conte and VADA. Two decades ago, Conte infamously helped athletes such as Barry Bonds, Shane Mosley and Marion Jones to cheat via performance-enhancing drugs. These days, Conte works with Haney and other athletes as a nutrition, strength and conditioning consultant. Conte is also a vocal supporter of VADA, and has helped to educate VADA’s founder about drug testing, but he has no role with VADA.
Garcia accepted a settlement agreement with the athletic commission on June 20, two months after the fight. He was suspended for one year, with the back-dated suspension to begin on April 20, 2024. He was fined $10,000 and forfeited his seven-figure fight night purse back to his promoter, Golden Boy Promotions. And his win over Haney was overturned.
(Some people have misread and misunderstood the NYSAC’s consent order. Garcia’s punishment was not merely for failing to disclose his supplements. Rather, the consent order noted that Garcia’s failure to disclose the supplements rendered moot any argument that the positive test wasn’t his fault.)
Meanwhile, Garcia continued to get himself in trouble.
He was arrested in June and accused of causing significant damage to his hotel room; the charge was dropped months later once Garcia paid the hotel’s repair costs.
He was lambasted in July for making racist and Islamophobic statements, then said he would go into rehab for substance abuse issues and seek professional help for mental health issues.
Rehab and therapy can be personal and private things. If he went forward with them, then he hasn’t spoken publicly about it.
This time off could have been a time for growth, to recover and reform. It hasn’t been. Garcia has never fully admitted fault or truly taken responsibility for his actions.
It didn’t help that the punishment hasn’t proven punitive enough.
Yes, the suspension was longer than those many other fighters in the United States have received. And the loss of paydays – April’s and any others that would have come during the time after – is not insignificant. But has any of this served as a deterrent? Many fighters, whether by choice or circumstance, now go on extended layoffs from the ring. And Garcia was never intent on going a full year without boxing.
In November, Garcia announced that he would take part in an exhibition bout in Japan in December, in essence circumventing the intentions of the suspension. (That exhibition was canceled amid Golden Boy saying it hadn’t yet signed off on the bout. And then Garcia got hurt in training and has since undergone wrist surgery.)
Now here we are, just about nine months after Garcia’s fight with Haney, just about seven months after the NYSAC settlement, about one month after the exhibition was called off and still about three months away from the suspension ending.
The suspension isn’t over, and yet Garcia is working on his return – and that return is feeling like a reward.
Because of everything that happened in 2024, Garcia’s comeback in 2025 is even bigger. And it’s no wonder that Haney is signing on. Yes, he wants revenge for his (overturned) loss. But it’s also about gains. Money will almost always be a major motivator. Profit will almost always win out over principle.
Haney, after all, accepted the $600,000 penalty payment from Garcia to move forward with last year’s bout after Garcia came in overweight. But that fight otherwise cost Haney. His defensive liabilities were evident as he was repeatedly staggered and dropped. Haney’s chin was not only vulnerable, but flawed. He could be caught. He could be hurt. Yes, Garcia had the advantages conferred by not making weight and through the use of ostarine. None of that undoes the literal damage Haney took during the fight and the figurative damage that lingered afterward.
It’s no surprise that Haney sued Garcia. Haney still didn’t do himself any favors with his career choices. He hasn’t been back in the ring himself. He hasn’t scored any victories to begin rebuilding his reputation. He chose not to move forward with a fight against Sandor Martin. And he gave up his remaining leverage: the world title the WBC handed back to Haney given that Garcia came in overweight. Haney later vacated the belt and was named the sanctioning body’s “champion in recess.”
Haney has taken a lot of criticism about the lawsuit. The litigation wasn’t unprecedented. While not at all a direct parallel, Deontay Wilder won a lawsuit after his fight with Alexander Povetkin was canceled due to Povetkin testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug. Some boxing fans wanted Haney to just take his loss and move on. But commission penalties clearly haven’t been enough to prevent fighters from cheating. The threat of civil suits – the costs of defending one’s self and potentially paying further damages – could help to discourage it.
Now that lawsuit is on hold. Haney likely thinks he would get more money from facing Garcia again – which will only happen if he drops the case – than he would by continuing with the lawsuit and not getting the rematch.
It seems as if no one has learned their lessons from last year’s fiascos. Or perhaps it was the wrong lessons that were learned.
“It’s getting really strange why it’s always VADA. Can we get some other organizations to test?” Garcia posted on X.
Given that VADA was the organization that caught Garcia cheating – and has caught plenty of other fighters cheating – it’s no surprise that Haney wants to go with them again. And it’s no surprise that Garcia doesn’t want that. He sounds like a child who is sorry for being caught but not sorry for what they did.
Anyone who is fighting Garcia – and anyone who is fighting in general – should insist on strong testing protocol.
Alas, drug testing continues to be a cat-and-mouse game, one in which the mouse is given all sorts of strategic advantages. Beating drug tests can often be a question of one’s IQ and resources.
Most drug testing doesn’t begin until a couple months before a fight, at most. The frequency and level of testing that is done – beyond what little the athletic commissions do – can depend on how much funding the fighters and promoters have provided for it. Even the UFC’s drug testing protocol, which has its own flaws and loopholes, requires fighters to be in its drug testing pool for six months before being allowed to step into the cage.
The same boxing promoters who rain fire and brimstone when an opposing fighter tests positive will bend over backward to defend, and therefore enable, a fighter on their own roster. Profit over principle. Don’t expect Golden Boy (or anyone else) to follow the Golden Rule.
Anyone who is fighting Garcia should also insist on stronger financial penalties if he fails to make weight. It’s doubtful that he can make 140 again, given that he was above 143lbs for the first Haney bout and at 143lbs, contractually allowed, for a December 2023 victory over Oscar Duarte.
As for Haney, even if he has been working on things in the gym, he hasn’t tried his defensive fixes on fight night against a top-notch opponent who is willing and able to put those fixes to the test. Nor has Haney seen how he will perform at, say, the welterweight limit. That’s what Haney must do with any interim fight before his rematch with Garcia. He could have given himself far more time to acclimate and adjust over these past nine months. He didn’t.
The build to the first Haney-Garcia fight was bad enough. A second fight, if it indeed happens, will rehash all of the ugliness that has happened since. And we will eat it up, popcorn in hand. This fight will get big buzz. The fighters will get big bucks.
Ryan Garcia and Devin Haney are like a persistent infection. And we are the ones who help them go viral.
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