Ryan Garcia revealed today that he’d been trolling the entire time during the build-up for his fight against Devin Haney last weekend, intentionally acting crazy to convince people that he was loony.
Playing the Fool, Winning the Fight
Garcia’s act worked to perfection, as he fooled not only the media and fans but also WBC light welterweight champion Haney (31-1, 15 KOs) and his dad. Ryan’s unhinged act had Devin saying that there was “something wrong with Ryan” the week of the fight, but he also said that he was prepared.
It’s unclear if Ryan’s crazy act caused Haney to let his foot off the accelerator during their training for their fight at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
The outcome of the fight, Garcia (25-1, 20 KOs) winning a 12-round majority decision, seemed to be more a case of him being too quick and powerful for Devin.
Most agree that if Haney had played hit and run like he’d done in his previous fight against Regis Prograis, he would have had a better chance of winning last Saturday against Ryan.
The downside of Haney fighting like that is it would have hurt his career, causing him to be booed and it wouldn’t have led to boxing fans wanting to pay to see his future fights. Haney was forced to slug with Ryan as much as possible to ensure that he could win over the fans.
Social Media Magician
“We had it pre-recorded with my cameraman months ago, I said, ‘I’m about to make sure everybody thinks I’m going to go crazy.’ I have it all documented. I was planning it months ago. I don’t know what made me come up with the idea, I just decided to go all in and commit to the plan that I had… People, that’s on them, they underestimated me because of social media. You can make anything look a certain way on social media. They fooled themselves,” said Ryan Garcia to Patrick Bet David.
