Top boxing prospect Ryan Garcia says he will continue to take shots at his former mentor and friend Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, despite receiving criticism from Floyd Mayweather for doing so.
The pair used to have a big brother, little brother dynamic as they both trained under Eddy Reynoso, and they were both signed to Golden Boy Promotions.
Since then, however, their relationship has soured and it all began after Garcia knocked out Luke Campbell in 2021 and then decided to take a break from the sport due to mental health issues, which prompted Canelo to criticise him for his lack of discipline.
More recently, Garcia predicted that Canelo would lose in his upcoming trilogy bout with Gennady Golovkin and it did not go down well with the Mexican.
Somewhat surprisingly, Canelo’s long-time rival has jumped to his defence amid the ongoing drama with his former prodigy.
“You see Ryan Garcia. First he’s praising Canelo, wants to learn from Canelo, in Canelo’s training camp. Now it’s all hate. Accomplish what Canelo has accomplished, then speak bad about him,” Mayweather said.
“One thing about Canelo, he’s gonna step up to the plate and do what he gotta do. He’s gonna fight. I can’t knock the mother***** because he’s going down in the Hall of Fame.”
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The 23-year-old is refusing to back down in his war of words with Canelo and says Mayweather’s intervention will not stop him from talking bad about his former teammate.
"They need the Avengers to stop me, they need the Avengers to stop me from talking. It could be Floyd, it could be Canelo, throw in all the GOATs, they need them all. They can't stop me," he told Fight Hype.
Garcia faces perhaps the most difficult test of his career when he takes on the former WBA super-featherweight champion Javier Fortuna in Los Angeles on Saturday night.
A win over Fortuna could set ‘King’ up for a title shot in the lightweight division that is currently dominated by undisputed champion Devin Haney.
Alternatively, he could earn himself a long-talked about and lucrative fight against Gervonta Davis who holds the WBA ‘regular’ lightweight title which is a lesser version of the WBA crown and not generally regarded as a true world title as Haney holds the legitimate WBA ‘super’ belt.
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