Ryan Garcia skipped a pre-fight faceoff with opponent Conor Benn and there were all sorts of questions about why it didn’t happen.
Was Garcia blowing off his contractually obligated responsibilities to promote the fight? Was there a bigger issue at work that made Garcia skip the faceoff. Well, it turns out it was nothing that dramatic.
In fact, Garcia just flat out didn’t want to be there so he skipped the entire event.
“I wasn’t there because I didn’t want to be” Garcia said during media day on Wednesday. “I mean look we got a faceoff at the press conference and then at the weigh-ins and then a final faceoff literally in the ring when the ref’s giving you instructions.
“I’ve been doing this so long. I had fight weeks in Vegas before and I’ve never had to do a faceoff on Tuesday or Wednesday. I’ve never had to do that. I have a routine to do and it’s just something I didn’t want to do.”
While Garcia was missing in action, Benn was there waiting on an opponent who never actually showed up.d
As much as Garcia would love to claim it was some great bit of mental warfare to get at Benn, that just wasn’t his actual intention. Still if the side effect of missing the faceoff irritated Benn, then it was a happy accident and Garcia is happy to embrace that.
“It was funny seeing him staring at himself,” Garcia said with laugh. “But yeah, I mean I don’t know if it affected him. I don’t really care. I’m glad that people got a kick out of it.”
