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Fighters often try to get under the skin of their opponents pre-fight in an attempt to get a psychological advantage.
Junior welterweight titleholder Devin Haney gave Ryan Garcia such a jab Tuesday afternoon at a news conference to promote their pay-per-view fight April 20 at Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn, New York.
And Haney used a predictable subject to do it: He called Garcia a quitter because he failed to get up from a body shot delivered by Gervonta Davis in April of last year.
“We seen Ryan quit before,” Haney said. “We seen Ryan take a knee before and quit. And on April 20 it won’t be no different.”
Garcia (24-1, 20 KOs) took a vicious left hook to the body from one of the biggest punchers in the sport pound-for-pound in the seventh round, which clearly hurt him. Moments later he went down to his right knee in pain and failed to get up, which resulted in a knockout.
He addressed Haney’s comment in an interview with DAZN after the formal portion of the news conference.
He alluded to the physical impact of moving down from 140 pounds to a catch weight of 136 and said the punch landed on his liver, which can paralyze a fighter.
“It’s just stupid,” Garcia said. “I want to see somebody cutting all that weight, killing themselves, have blisters in your mouth before the fight because you’re so dehydrated, get in the ring, fight in front of everybody in the biggest fight of your life and get hit to the liver. And you’ll see what you do.
“Don’t talk like that. … Get in the ring and show me you could do better then.”
Garcia rebounded from the loss to stop Oscar Duarte in eight rounds in December.
Haney (31-0, 15 KOs) is one of the hottest fighters in the world. Most recently, he moved up from 135 — at which he had been the undisputed champion — to challenge 140-pound beltholder Regis Prograis and won by a shutout decision.
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