Eddie Hearn Believes Team Garcia Won The Narrative Battle
The formal proceedings surrounding junior welterweight fighter “King Ry” Ryan Garcia’s (24-1, 20 KO’s) Ostarine violation have concluded. Yet, in the eyes of Eddie Hearn, long time co-promoter of WBC 140-pound champion Devin Haney, Team Garcia had no desire to seek true vindication.
Ultimately, the New York State Athletic Commission, whose jurisdiction provided the ruling, suspended Garcia for a year, fined him $1 million and ruled the bout a no contest, thereby restoring Haney’s undefeated record. In the end however, Hearn viewed this as little more than clever, legal maneuvering.
“I think it was a smart thing to do because I don’t think they really wanted to battle the case or prove their innocence really! So, it’s a year, it’s really not that long a time . . . So we don’t really get to the bottom of it in terms of how deep this really was in terms of intentional, unintentional. But I guess that’s what they wanted. Ryan Garcia’s team, they’ve dealt with it and now he can move on.”
Eddie Hearn
SO THE OFFENDING TEAM GETS RICHER?!
From the outside looking in, this final ruling does appear to have no teeth, substance or even make a ton of logical sense. Certainly, Haney is happy to have the “0” back on his ledger. However, minus that, Garcia was suspended for a laughable amount of time. Since being flagged, King Ry has accepted zero responsibility of any kind and continues this trend after the ruling.
More so than not accepting any responsibility, King Ry has accused Victor Conte and his SNAC company, VADA, Devin Haney and three separate supplement companies of foul play and conspiring against him. Each and everyone of these rationales was devoid of any real substance. In fact, they contradicted each other. So much so that, by his own account, he is being sued. And in an even more weird turn of events, the million dollars that he was fined was awarded to Team Garcia in the form of Golden Boy Promotions. This was another notion that baffled Hearn.
“I think the million is going to Golden Boy, that’s nice! I’ve had loads of fighters test positive and I’ve never got a penny!”
Eddie Hearn
In the end, no matter how you slice it, it seems as if Team Garcia was allowed to work the system and walk away virtually unscathed. The saddening part about this final ruling is, as much attention as it garnered, rather than set a precedent that would give fighters pause from cheating in the future, it almost gave the green light to those who are willing to utilize nefarious methods to achieve ultimate victory.
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