Oscar De La Hoya believes his star client needs some serious introspection.
The Hall of Fame fighter and promoter of Ryan Garcia offered a sobering critique of the lightweight star in a recent interview, saying he needs to truly commit himself to boxing and have “tunnel vision” if he wants to have further success.
Garcia, a native of Victorville, California, is coming off a high profile fight against southpaw star Gervonta Davis in their 136-pound bout last month at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Davis dropped Garcia twice, including a body shot in the seventh round from which Garcia never recovered.
Their ballyhooed fight was a box office success and sold far more pay-per-views than initial industry expectations.
Garcia, who has stated he intends to move up to the junior welterweight division of 140 pounds, claimed that a “mole” had infiltrated his team ahead of the Davis fight.
De La Hoya pointed out that Garcia needs to look inward as well.
“Ryan Garcia has to rearrange his team, his inner circle,” De La Hoya told FightHubTV, “and then take it from there. And take boxing seriously and train harder and train smarter and have an actual training camp up in the mountains where you’re focused, where you have tunnel vision, that’s my opinion.”
De La Hoya batted away concern that he and Garcia are possibly on the outs. Many criticized the promoter for not being present with Garcia after the Davis fight during the post-fight press conference.
“Obviously, people trying to wedge me and Ryan,” De La Hoya said. “We have something great going, we have something amazing going with his career, and he’s on the rise, even though he lost. There are a lot of people out there who are trying to create a wedge. I understand it, but look, Golden Boy is here to stay. We’re going to keep promoting for 50 more years, and that’s just what I want to do for the rest of my life. Fighters are going to either be with us or not. There’s a lot of people who have a lot of hate and a lot of jealousy but we must continue to do what we do and just move on with our business.”
Sean Nam is the author of the forthcoming book Murder on Federal Street: Tyrone Everett, the Black Mafia, and the Last Golden Age of Philadelphia Boxing