It ain’t much, but it’s what we got. Golden Boy brings us the only real show of the weekend on Facebook Watch. Ryan Garcia headlines.
This might end up being the shortest preview I’ve ever written. Golden Boy is really betting the farm on Ryan Garcia (15-0, 13 KOs). The 20 year old is a good prospect too. That isn’t why though. Instead, it is out of the ring interest that has Oscar De La Hoya and company salivating at the thought of turning him into a star. The Los Angeles kid is a model in the most literal way. He walks the runway for Tommy Hilfiger. He has well over a million Instagram followers without any big moments in the sport. Garcia even has a line of commercials reportedly set to start early next year.
Maybe most impressive within the context of boxing alone, young Ryan surprisingly drew over 7,000 fans in his first main event at the venerable StubHub Center. The kicker on top of that even was that the demographic that showed up was different. It was much, much more female. Ryan Garcia is just as much a teen heartthrob as he is a prospect. The only other comparison to another fighter that can be drawn in this way is an appropriate one. Promoter Oscar De La Hoya himself came up to a similar reaction in the earliest days of his career. The similarities to his own experience is probably partly why Oscar seems so excited to have Garcia to bring up the ranks.
Can he fight though? Yes, for sure. ESPN’s Dan Rafael named him the prospect of the year in 2017, even. I think that is a bit much though. “Kingry” is obviously a good talent. He has a solid frame and shows power in each hand. Garcia also has relatively quick hands and a really solid base to throw them from. My concerns are more technical. Ryan does not consistently jab. Accordingly, he can’t control distance yet in his career. That’s a bad thing, of course, but it is made so much worse by the fact that he doesn’t move his head either. His opponents have the ability to get to where they want to be and then to throw at a stationary target while there. This hasn’t mattered yet and won’t matter Saturday, but it will long term if it isn’t corrected.
Again though, it won’t matter tomorrow. Carlos Morales (17-2-3, 6 KOs) is a competent pro fighter, but he is also rather limited physically compared to an athlete like Garcia. The only real question here is whether or not Garcia can become the first man to stop him. I think he probably will.
Former top Mexican amateur junior middleweight Marvin Cabrera (8-0, 6 KOs) has the co-featured slot against fellow unbeaten Neeco Macias (16-0, 9 KOs). That looks like a nice test on paper, but it probably isn’t. Macias has a grand total of two fights against guys with reasonable records. The other fourteen either had a lengthy losing record or little experience to speak of otherwise. Facebook Watch has the show at 9 PM Eastern. Hopefully it works all the way through this time.
