Is Ryan Garcia Ready for His Ali Moment?

Ryan Garcia is riding on top of the world following his dominant win on Sept. 12 against Conor Benn.

Winning his first title against Mario Barrios earlier this year in February was the crowning achievement of Garcia’s career, but as Ryan ¨King Ry¨ Garcia acknowledged after his most recent fight, you’re not truly a champion until you defend your title.

His first WBC Welterweight title defense could not have been more convincing, as he stopped Benn in the second round of a one-sided beat down. Garcia is known for a thunderous left hook, but it was his right hook to Benn’s chin that put him down and hurt him, taking all of the fight out of his British challenger.

So after a brief hiccup last year where he lost to Rolly Romero, Garcia’s career is back on track after two straight convincing victories at the championship level.

That type of momentum has one of boxing’s most celebrated legends comparing Garcia’s coming opportunity to one of the sport’s most celebrated fight: Ali vs. Frazier.

Roy Jones compares Ryan Garcia to Canelo Alvarez

Hall of Game is one of my absolute favorite boxing podcasts. It features Boxing Hall of Famers Andre Ward and Roy Jones Jr going back and forth about the latest fights and scuttlebutt around the sport.

What’s great about the podcast is that while Andre Ward is a bit more polished in his delivery than his co-host, neither host is scared to swing for the fences with their takes. Sometimes their takes are a home run, other times they are lazy pop flies.

Roy Jones Jr. had one of each concerning Ryan Garcia on this week’s episode, the title of which screams ¨Roy Jones Calls Ryan Garcia ´The New Canelo.´¨

After unrolling my eyes, I jumped into the hour-plus-long episode to see what Roy Jones was talking about. According to him, Garcia is the new Canelo because ¨everybody wants to see Ryan.¨

Canelo has been the face of boxing since Floyd Mayweather retired, and Roy Jones believes that Garcia, who is extremely popular on social media, is now in that same position.

This was a lazy pop fly of a take for me, because while Garcia is popular on social media, Canelo sells out arenas. While Garcia attracted millions of viewers to Paramount+ two weekends ago, Canelo sells Pay Per Views by the millions.

Garcia has an undeniably rabid fanbase, but they are young and they haven’t proven that they are willing to spend money to see him. Meanwhile, Canelo has hundreds of thousands of fans in Mexico willing to travel all over the world to support him.

If Garcia can translate his online popularity into that type of support, then by all means call him the face of boxing. But until then, Canelo stands alone.

That was the lazy pop up. Roy Jones’ next take about Garcia was a home run.