Mind of Garcia

In late 2023, welterweight star Ryan Garcia had some sort of disagreement with Golden Boy and, specifically, Oscar de la Hoya. Most of it appeared to be an understandable reaction from a superstar suffering his first defeat, as well as justifiably resenting (Oscar’s business partner) Bernard Hopkins’ comment that Garcia may consider retirement immediately after the loss. At the time, I thought De la Hoya’s comments about Garcia’s mental stability were a businessman’s strategic distraction from the much simpler issues at hand, but now it’s looking like Oscar had some perspective that fans may not have.

On Saturday, ESPN posted an article describing the unusual request from the NY state athletic commission for Garcia to pass a mental health check before competing in his upcoming fight against the physically gifted Devin Haney. If anything, the article significantly downplays the issues, stating only briefly that “Garcia has made a litany of eyebrow-raising social media posts over the past few weeks, ranging from conspiracy theories to claims he has evidence of the existence of extraterrestrials,” and connecting the recent events to a 2021 incident in which Garcia withdrew from a fight citing mental health concerns. There’s also a quote from De la Hoya about Garcia being focused and in great spirits, but it all seems like an effort to brush something under the proverbial rug.

Sportingnews.com has posted a much more in-depth analysis of Garcia’s recent behavior, including many choice Twitter posts in their entirety, and more nuanced context for the timing and content of the posts. If nothing else, the wildly inconsistent language the 25 year-old fighter uses is somewhat concerning. No one expects a fighter to be Shakespeare in social media posts, but Garcia will write something like “Who else would satan support then [sic] devil haney,” and “lol you are a good one Mr Snake. Cheaters never win caca brain,” then come out with something like “I, Ryan Garcia, will not be speaking or tweeting or writing anything other then [sic] my fight ‘boxing’ and sports.” Aside from the poor spelling, a fair, if un-clinical description for the tweets would be schizophrenic. The clinical diagnosis for the fighter, himself, remains a mystery.

I’ve said before that distractions like this never bode well for a fighter, but we’ve seen recent examples that completely contradict that perspective–look at Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, both of whom suffered periods of self-described mental health crises, and now reign at the top of the sport’s marquee division. Garcia definitely should have performed better in the fight against Gervonta Davis, but he’s looked good since, and there’s no telling which version will show up on fight night. Devin Haney is a talented and naturally gifted athlete who would challenge any opponent in terms of stamina and defense. He’s shown his limitations in the fight against Lomachenko, but Garcia will have to put all of his skills on display and exhibit uncharacteristic determination in order to equal the performance that Lomachenko put on that night.

So, even if these behaviors appear to be a clear cry for help, or something worse, whatever’s causing them may not have any effect on the fight. Given Garcia’s performance against Davis, though, in addition to these recent aberrations, his chances don’t look good.