Ryan Garcia claims that he left Devin Haney with a brutal injuy in one of the pair’s unrecorded amateur fights before their professional careers.
The super-lightweight prospect will face Haney for his WBC world title on Saturday night at the Barclays Centre in Brooklyn. But the pair have history, having fought each other six times as amateurs before turning over to the paid ranks.
They picked up three victories each, with Haney taking the most recent meeting in 2015 by Unanimous Decision in the USA Youth National Championships Quarter-Final. Since then, they have both made a name for themselves as top stars at the lower weights in boxing.
Devin Haney is massive favourite for Ryan Garcia fight – despite losing to him three times
Haney is the current WBC super-lightweight champion, after becoming undisputed at lightweight when he defeated George Kambosos Jr twice in 2022. Since then, he has beaten Vasily Lomachenko before moving up and knocking out Regis Prograis.
Meanwhile, Garcia has yet to win legitimate world honours. He fought for a version of the WBA lightweight belt last year in a massive pay-per-view bout with Gervonta Davis, but was stopped in the seventh on his big step up.
Almost all experts are picking Haney to win this bout, despite the fact that he has already suffered three defeats to his rival in the amateurs. Garcia is massively confident, but hasn’t instilled confidence with fans as he continues to make outlandish outbursts on social media.
Devin Haney vs Ryan Garcia amateur fights dissected
Garcia and Haney are said to have fought six times as amateurs, although only four are recorded on BoxRec. There, they each hold two decision wins over the other, meaning that they went 1-1 in their unrecorded bouts.
The only footage of any of these fights that can be found online is a recording of their 2014 meeting, in which Haney got a razor-close decision. At the end of that bout, Garcia can be seen raising his hand as if confident in victory, but ends up taking the loss.
It remains to be seen how any of this will translate to the professional ranks, where they wear considerably smaller gloves and compete in longer rounds. They will also be heavier, and with a world title on the line will be looking to stop their rival and avoid the judges’ scorecards.
Ryan Garcia claims he broke Devin Haney’s ear drum in unrecorded amateur fight
Garcia has said that Haney knows his power very well, telling DAZN that he was informed of an injury he inflicted on his rival’s ear drum during one of their meetings.
“We were at the Junior Olympic Nationals, we were about 14, 15”, he explained. “I went at him right away, and I had him hurt and wobbling in the middle of the ring. Everybody’s going crazy. One of his people in his corner came up to my dad after the fight.
“He said, ‘Devin thinks you broke his eardrum because he can’t hear at all’. They wanted to stop the fight… That’s just one example of what I’ve done to him, and he never gave me an eight count. They literally cut the video they were showing.”