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đź‘‘ Return Of The King
Welcome to this week’s edition of The Fight With Teddy Atlas Newsletter, your one-stop shop for all things combat sports related, brought to you by Teddy and The Fight team.
Every Friday We Bring You:
A combat sports news digest with all the headlines you need to know from Boxing and Mixed Martial Arts.
Highlights from the podcast and across the fight world.
Fight times and information you need to know ahead of time.
Fight News From Around The 🌍
Playing Possum
“Who’s the crazy one now?”
With these words at the post-fight press conference, Ryan Garcia reminded the boxing world of the scale of the upset he caused when he dropped and defeated the heavy favourite Devin Haney on Saturday.
The pre-fight build-up was dominated by his antics, where a huge chunk of the boxing establishment, as well as fans, expressed concern over his behaviour.
Whether it was his strange social media posts, his diet or personal issues, something didn’t look quite right with Garcia leading up to his biggest fight since the Gervonta Davis defeat.
The script dictated that he was being set up to fail on the big stage, up against a talented, strong and undefeated Devin Haney, who was fresh off of a dominant display against a world-class fighter in Regis Prograis.
That script was promptly torn up, as outlined in more detail by Teddy below.
It remains to be seen whether there are ongoing problems with the 25 year old, and how much of what we saw was him “overdoing” it to get the public, the media and the bookies to underestimate him. It could be that there are things there still to be addressed as far as his mental health.
What we know for sure however, is that Garcia is now a major player between 140 and 154, and that there are even bigger fights on the horizon for him off the back of this win.
Doubt him again at your peril.
The Dream Becomes A Nightmare
Devin Haney may have lost undefeated record on Saturday, but he deserves full credit for still fighting to win after overcoming some very heavy knockdowns.
Punches that would have counted out other fighters couldn’t keep him down, with the champion doing enough to win a lot of the rounds where he didn’t suffer a knockdown.
Garcia’s weight advantage may have been a factor in why he was hurt so often by his power, but there’s no denying that Haney’s fight strategy was off and that he was beaten by the better man on the night.
Due to Garcia missing weight by 3lbs, he gets to keep his WBC title at 140 lbs, where there are still potentially big fights waiting for him.
WBO champion Teofimo Lopez could be a potential opponent if he gets past his next fight. So too could the winner of Subriel Matias vs Liam Paro for the IBF title or the winner of the Josh Taylor vs Jack Catterall rematch.
Even in defeat, the future is bright for “The Dream”.
Coming To America
Turki Alalshikh, the new face of boxing, has taken his matchmaking power state side, bringing a blockbuster card to Los Angeles for August 3rd, for one of the most stacked cards that the sport has seen in years.
In the headliner, 3 weight world champion and pound for pound mainstay Terence Crawford will attempt to become a world champion in his 4th weight division, as he takes on the WBA light-middleweight champ Israil Madrimov.
The sheer quality of the card is a testament to the hard work his excellency Turki Alalshikh has been putting into making great matchups in the sport, bringing boxing closer to its combat sports counterparts in MMA in terms of great fight cards and entertainment value.
The fans have been asking for it for years, and if this new Saudi backed card is a success in the USA, we can hope for more in years to come.
It could be only a matter of time until we see a UFC model emerge in boxing. Watch this space…
Fight ⏰ for this weekend
Boxing: Ramirez vs Barthelemy (Saturday 27th/Sunday 28th)
🇺🇸 Full Card: 8pm Eastern/ 5pm Pacific | Main Event: 11pm Eastern/ 8pm Pacific
🇬🇧 Full Card: 1am | Main Event: 4am
🇦🇺 Full Card: 10am Eastern/ 8am Western | Main event: 1pm Eastern/ 11am Western
MMA: Nicolau vs Perez (Saturday 27th/Sunday 28th)
🇺🇸 Full Card: 7pm Eastern/4pm Pacific | Main Event: 9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific
🇬🇧 Full Card: 12am | Main Card: 2am
🇦🇺 Full Card: 9am Eastern/ 7am Western | Main event: 11am Eastern/ 9am Western