Ryan Garcia is making his return to action this Saturday night, headlining a DAZN card from San Antonio’s Alamodome against Ghana’s Emmanuel Tagoe.
Garcia (21-0, 18 KO) hasn’t fought since the second day of 2021, pulling out of a couple of scheduled fights last year for different reasons. But Tagoe (32-1, 15 KO) has been out of action even longer, last fighting in Nov. 2020, and is a clear underdog here. Garcia has been positioned as a rising superstar, while Tagoe has been given anything but that sort of treatment.
Garcia, 23, is very confident coming into the fight, which will see him working with trainer Joe Goossen for the first time.
“I’ll feel him out and see what he has, and then I’ll start working from there, but I expect to do what I always do, really,” Garcia said after Thursday’s press conference. “I’m a search, find, destroy, and repeat type of fighter. I’m a boxer-puncher, just how I’ve always been, but I can make the adjustment to get down and dirty if I need to. Not, like, a dirty fighter, but you know what I mean. I’m conditioned for 15 rounds and it’s only a 12-round fight, so I’m ready.”
The young star also said he respects Tagoe as he does all opponents, but it was hard to not get the sense that Garcia is looking to do some damage after a somewhat tense build-up.
“He’s put a lot of pressure on himself,” Garcia stated. “He said if he loses, he’s retiring. He said it’s gonna be easy, this, that. That’s a lot of words to live up to in that ring, when one thing’s for sure, it will not be easy. So we shall see what he brings out.”
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