Ryan Garcia will return to the ring before the end of the year.
BoxingScene.com has confirmed that Golden Boy Promotions has holds at venues in at least two states for a planned November 18 featuring the top star in its stable. Mexico’s Oscar Duarte is among the leading candidates to next face Garcia in a junior welterweight bout, though at least two other opponents were in the mix as this goes to publication.
Locations in Arizona and Texas are being explored for what will mark Garcia’s return as a headliner on a DAZN-exclusive event.
International Boxing News was the first to reveal the possibility of Duarte (26-1-1, 21KOs) as a potential Garcia opponent. The 27-year-old from Parral, Chihuahua rebounded from a February 2019 split decision defeat to Adrian Estrella with eleven straight wins, all inside the distance. A fight with Garcia would require a move up in weight for Duarte, who has spent the bulk of his ten-year career at lightweight.
There are several factors in play for the event to move forward, least of which are finalizing an opponent or location.
Golden Boy still has an active lawsuit against Garcia, which was originally filed June 16 in United States District Court of Nevada. Garcia (23-1, 19KOs) filed a Motion to Dismiss in August, after which point Golden Boy added a Breach of Contract claim in an amended complaint earlier this month.
Boxing Scene has learned that the matter is due to go to mediation in mid-October.
Where the two sides see eye to eye is for the 25-year-old box office star to remain active.
Garcia has not fought since an April 22 seventh-round knockout defeat to Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis. The Showtime Pay-Per-View headliner remains the highest grossing event of the year, with a reported 1.2 million PPV units sold and a live gate of roughly $22.8 million in ticket sales from a sold-out crowd of 20,842 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The well-publicized event also featured the first signs of trouble between promoter and fighter. Hall of Famers and Golden Boy heads Oscar De La Hoya and Bernard Hopkins were both fixtures throughout the promotion but noticeably absent from the post-fight press conference, as was Joe Goossen, Garcia’s trainer for more than a year.
Garcia and Goossen subsequently parted ways, citing an amicable split.
The fallout between Garcia and his estranged promoter was anything but that. De La Hoya took their beef public, calling out his star client on Twitter prior to the lawsuit filed against the Victorville, California native.
It is believed that the two sides will find common ground for the sake of Garcia fighting later this fall, with hopes that the October mediation will help resolve any lingering issues.
Garcia was previously a top lightweight contender, his last bout at the weight coming in a seventh-round knockout of 2012 Olympic Gold medalist and former title challenger Luke Campbell. It also marked his final fight under the tutelage of trainer Eddy Reynoso, with whom he trained since late 2018. His three fights aligned with Goossen all came above the lightweight limit, including 2022 wins over Emmanuel Tagoe and Javier Fortuna.
Garcia has since joined the growing stable of 2022 Trainer of the Year Derrick James in the greater Dallas area. He has since revealed that he will be training in Las Vegas ahead of his planned return later this fall.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox