Golden Boy is taking a risk tonight on Cinco de Mayo weekend with 19 year old super prospect Ryan Garcia by putting him in with fringe top 25 junior lightweight Jayson Velez. The Puerto Rican isn’t a step up to world class, but he is a notable one from the levels Garcia has been fighting to date.
Oscar De La Hoya and company have a lot riding on 19 year old Ryan Garcia (14-0, 13 KOs). While Golden Boy Promotions still has the sport’s biggest star in Canelo Alvarez and other top fighters like Jorge Linares and Rey Vargas, it has never quite recovered to the level it was at from losing much of its roster to the upstart PBC brand in 2015. There has definitely been progress, but the organization formerly had a claim for being the biggest in the business. Now it is third or fourth at best.
While promotional rivals like Bob Arum’s Top Rank and Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing have scooped up major amateur star after major amateur star to raise as their promotion’s futures, Golden Boy hasn’t had the same success at the prospect level. The hope is that Ryan Garcia is the exception. They have a few other real promising looking youngsters like Vergil Ortiz Jr and Jason Quigley, for example, but Garcia is definitely the current belle of the ball so to speak.
Young Ryan is a beautiful left hook artist who often does well to set it up behind a jab and straight right hand. At the lower levels of the sport, he has shown power in both hands too. He is a plus athlete with a solid natural sense of distance and when to let his shots go in the ring. In that sense, he is years beyond his age in the ring. Yet, all is not perfect. Ryan Garcia also fights very physically straight up without much had movement. I worry about how he leaves his chin out there to be hit.
Is Jayson Velez (26-4-1, 18 KOs) a man who can test that potential weakness? I really think so. I am not saying Velez is a contender. I don’t even have him in the S8C Top 25 at the weight, though he is just outside of it. What I am saying is that he is a massive step up from the men Ryan Garcia had previously been fighting. There are countless levels to this game and tonight’s Puerto Rican B-side is on a significantly higher one than the likes of recent Garcia opponents like Fernando Vargas or Cesar Valenzuela.
Just look at his resume. Four years ago, Velez was an unbeaten prospect getting a world title shot on HBO against Evgeny Gradovich. He fought well too and managed a draw. After a comeback win, Velez’s career began to tank with the four losses on his resume coming in sequence. Yet, looking at those losses, they don’t really seem that bad in hindsight. First he narrowly lost a close fight to Ronny Rios. No shame there. Then he was soundly outboxed by JoJo Diaz, but the US Olympian is one of the better young fighters in the game in my opinion. Velez followed that with a very narrow split decision loss to extremely underrated contender Rene Alvarado. With different judges, Velez could very well have won the title off Gradovich and hold wins over Ronny Rios and Rene Alvarado. He wasn’t robbed in those fights, but they were close contests.
The wheels fell off next when he attempted a stay busy fight against six fight novice Alberto Santiago back home in Puerto Rico and again lost a close fight. That was a nightmare of a result that seemed to doom the Puerto Rican to prospect tester status. Velez finally rebounded though when he was again matched with an unbeaten young prospect at home by outpointing Alberto Mercado Jr. He followed that with a stay busy win before fighting the shell of Juan Manuel Lopez in March, stopping the former titleholder and emerging star late.
From a fan’s perspective, this is excellent matchmaking. There is real risk here. Ryan Garcia is extremely talented, clearly moreso than Jayson Velez. Yet, Ryan Garcia has also never seen anything close to Jayson Velez in there. Velez has competed and nearly won on something approaching the world level multiple times while Ryan Garcia has never fought anyone who really could even as much as fight back. Young Ryan also may be asked to go ten here when he previously has only been past the fourth round once two fights ago when he stopped his opponent in eight. Velez has never been stopped. We are really going to learn something tonight about Ryan Garcia, positive or negative.
Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan (27-2, 19 KOs) gets the co-main event call here against Dominican fighter Berlin Abreu (14-1, 11 KOs). Spike is rightfully favored here and should win, but it is worth noting that Abreu is coming off a decent win over literal Argentinian cab driver David Emanuel Peralta. Remember, Peralta is the one who massive upset Robert Guerrero Jr in the summer of 2016 and Abreu took him down in his very next fight. Of course, the real problem here is that was at welterweight. Abreu has never even fought at junior middleweight, but here he is being pulled up to a full 160 lbs. This is what Spike O’Sullivan passed up a career high payday to fight Gennady Golovkin tomorrow night for, or at least its the start of it anyway. I hope it works out for him.
ESPN2 has the call at 10:30 PM Eastern tonight with the WatchESPN prelims beginning an hour and a half earlier at 9. There is nothing really notable on them though except maybe early stage prospect and near Olympian Marvin Cabrera of Mexico. I am looking forward to this main event quite a bit more than I usually am for a Golden Boy on ESPN card.
