Today, an interesting exchange unfolded on Twitter. Promoter Oscar De La Hoya and his protégé, Ryan Garcia, traded public barbs.
Their confrontation stemmed from below comments Garcia made during an interview. Apparently, he felt a bit aggrieved about being abandoned at the post-fight press conference by De La Hoya.
What did Ryan Garcia say to get De La Hoya so mad?
Ryan Garcia: “I got a new coach, a great coach. We’re going to be working again. It’s interesting how sometimes we got to rework things and reset the team differently and all that stuff because it does affect you. Thank God that He showed me everybody that, you know, may have not been working for me. If I won, I wouldn’t have got to see it. I lost, I saw everybody leave me, and then I just got to see who’s really there for me.
After the fight, nobody was there for me. Like my team didn’t even come to the press conference. They didn’t do anything. You know what I mean? That’s so obvious, man. I was left with someone who betrayed me in camp. They weren’t trying to look out for me after the fight. It was like I was left with that. That’s worse than the fight, bro. It was the worst.
And I had Tank’s team really caring about me more than my own team. I had God with me the whole way, so I’m going to understand who’s there with me. God, my mom, and the team I’m going to have.”
Tired of hearing Garcia vent his frustrations, or as De La Hoya put it, “still crying over spilled milk,” the promoter decided to take their conversation public. His weapon of choice? Social media.
There, De La Hoya pointedly let Garcia know that he needed to take responsibility for his recent loss. This loss had come about after Garcia had made what De La Hoya considered to be a foolish decision. He had agreed to Gervonta Davis’ “rehydration clause” for their fight on April 22nd.
De La Hoya, drawing from his own boxing career, emphasized the importance of taking responsibility for losses, rather than blaming others, such as the promoter.
Despite the sting of his words, De La Hoya softened the blow slightly by attributing Garcia’s loss to his acceptance of the rehydration clause. However, De La Hoya expressed a harsh reality – he believed that Garcia would have lost the fight regardless of the clause.
In his opinion, Garcia was in over his head facing an opponent of Davis’ caliber. De La Hoya hinted that Garcia was simply not ready to handle such a formidable adversary. This was largely because Garcia’s previous opposition had mostly been, in De La Hoya’s words, “bottom-feeders” in the lightweight division.