What is valid for one fighter must be valid for another, with no exceptions or selective criteria. Ryan Garcia shared the ring with an opponent who deserves to be evaluated according to the same standards as those applied from the beginning to Ryan. Any other treatment would be intellectual hypocrisy.
Here we try to evaluate the true qualities of Ryan Garcia under the watchful eyes of fans and the media, based on a simple principle: Garcia entered as the bookmakers’ favorite and presumed winner, according to experts’ opinions and perceived limits of his opponent’s skills.
Another frequently used criterion to assess a boxer’s chances against another is the presence of a common opponent. The performances of both fighters against this opponent often heavily influence the opinions of specialists and fans. Garcia was stopped in seven rounds by Gervonta Davis, while Mario Barrios lasted until the eleventh round of a scheduled twelve-round fight. Is this really a fair measure?
It is sad and revealing to rethink what happened to a boxer like Canelo Álvarez against Terence Crawford, the moment when reality finally caught up. For months, a media machine insisted that Canelo, a natural lightweight boxer at 72kg, considered by many as technically superior in his category, should beat a welterweight. So were these ‘styles’ that supposedly make fights? Were we witnessing a boxer protected by a similar shadow to the one that followed Garcia, revealing the whole narrative for what it really was: a fantasy meant to inflate numbers and boost pay-per-view sales?
We have already witnessed the Garcia vs. Barrios fight. The remaining question is: why didn’t Garcia, who knocked Barrios down in the first round, finish the job before the twelfth? There could be multiple explanations, and I have no doubt that many will offer them. But at that time, boxing ceased to be what it once was, as the fighter who used to give his all to win a title was eventually rewarded with something else: money.
I have been observing boxing for decades. Perhaps I should be grateful to have witnessed less of its evolution. In the 1980s and 1990s, very few of the figures we now revere as modern stars could have done anything significant against boxers who, even at that time, were not perceived as dominant forces of their era.
It is difficult to imagine Napoles, Leonard, or Hearns allowing an opponent to fall in the first round and not pursue the stoppage in the following three rounds. Arguello, and more recently Román González, Bivol, Beterbiev, or even Canelo himself would probably have ended this fight well before the final bell.
We must accept that this ‘sport’ has gradually ceased to be one. It has turned into a raw entertainment product, much closer to a show than a real competition, where the approval of organizations like the WBC and WBA serves to preserve the illusion that what we loved about boxing still exists in its original form.
In the world of boxing, everything now revolves around one element: money. Events are designed to offer you half the product, packaged in the hollow promise that what you are watching is unique, unavailable elsewhere. The truth is simple. What is difficult is pretending not to see it.
At some point, we must stop pretending. What we now call boxing is no longer driven by urgency, risk, or the desire to finish. It is dictated by economic considerations. The fight between Garcia and Barrios did not highlight a lack of talent, but rather the absence of necessity. In another era, the question would not be why the fight went the distance, but rather its initial authorization.
Boxing has not evolved quietly. It has been remade. Packaged in belts, protected by narratives, and sold as something irreplaceable. The industry thrives on the illusion that what you see is rare, essential, historic. It is not the case. The truth is uncomfortable but inevitable: it is no longer a sport meant to crown the best. It is an entertainment product designed to maximize revenue, and the hardest part is not understanding it. It is accepting that we are still led to believe otherwise.
In the end, it seems that boxing, once perceived as a true sport, is gradually turning into entertainment. This leads me to wonder: how far are we willing to accept this drift without questioning our passion for this sport? As a committed enthusiast, I cannot help but fear that we are losing sight of what made boxing beautiful.
