Promoter Eddie Hearn wanted Ryan Garcia to re-weigh in on Saturday, the day of the fight against WBC light welterweight champion Devin Haney.
Hearn says Devin’s dad, Bill Haney, didn’t want the weight check on Saturday for Ryan because Devin rehydrates to “massive numbers.” However, Hearn says Devin (31-1, 15 KOs) shouldn’t have had to re-weigh because he was not the one who missed weight last Friday. In Hearn’s view, Devin shouldn’t have been obligated to re-weigh, only Ryan.
Haney Team Resists Re-Weigh
Hearn’s idea was for just Ryan to re-weigh on Saturday, not Haney. Bill didn’t want to push it, and it’s understandable why. That would have looked bad, and Ryan would have called them out on being forced to re-weigh while Haney, a fighter with a history of rehydrating massive amounts of weight, was exempt.
Ryan had already paid Devin $1.5 million for his lost weight bet of $500K per pound. So, if Hearn tried to stick a rehydration re-weigh for Ryan on the day of the fight last Saturday, he might have walked away and not fought.
Potential Consequences Avoided
“From Matchroom’s side, we wanted a re-weigh on Saturday. It was chosen not to be pushed, and I feel that was a mistake,” said promoter Eddie Hearn to BoxingNews YT about his wanting Ryan Garcia to take a secondary rehydration limit weight check after he came in overweight the day before at Friday’s weigh-in.
Ryan has already paid Haney $1.5 million for coming overweight. What more would Team Haney need? They got the money, and they were also getting a massive payday due to it being the popular Ryan.
If they had tried to weasel a secondary weigh-in out of Ryan, it would have looked so bad, and it could have blown up in their faces with him walking. Without Ryan, Haney would have been stuck with Arnold Barboza Jr. as the substitute, and the event on DAZN PPV would have bombed.
“I also understand that Devin rehydrates to massive numbers, but it has nothing to do with Devin,” said Hearn.”You get the fighter to rehydrate on Saturday. A lot of the time they don’t want to do it, of course, but it’s how far can you push them.
“Maybe Ryan Garcia was the type of guy that would have just walked away. Bill probably thought that Devin would rehydrate to massive numbers. ‘We don’t really want to re-weigh either,’ but you shouldn’t have to because Ryan was the guy that missed the weight.”
Ryan probably wouldn’t have walked away, but he would have told his 11 million followers about it on social media, and the news would have gone viral, making Haney and Bill look bad.
They didn’t need that kind of bad press, especially after they hurt the event big time last Wednesday when Devin chose to shove Ryan during a face-off on top of the Empire State Building in New York.
That little shoving incident by Haney led to the New York Mets organization canceling allowing both fighters to meet on the field for their game against the Pittsburgh Pirates to throw out the first pitch. Massive amounts of fans would have seen that at the stadium in New York and at home on TV.
Lingering Questions About Weight Advantage
“Hindsight is a great thing,” said Hearn. “I think if they would have pushed the Saturday weigh-in, there would have been a big chance that the fight wouldn’t have taken place, and obviously, Bill didn’t want that, and Devin didn’t want that. But, it was a massive physical advantage. You saw it on the night.
Haney looked just as big as Ryan inside the ring, so there wasn’t big weight advantage like Hearn is banging on about. If Hearn had found out what Ryan’s weight the night of the fight, he likely would have seen that it was either the same or less than Haney’s.
“It was like you were fighting a middleweight in there, and I would have loved to have known what Ryan weighed when he walked into the ring that night,” said Hearn.