their first press conference<\/a> for the September 12 WBC welterweight title fight. \u201cCalm down. I know you\u2019re getting all excited.\u201d<\/p>\nGarcia\u2019s answer became the moment of the afternoon. \u201cI know you\u2019re getting all excited, but I\u2019ll come over there and smack them glasses straight off your face,\u201d Garcia said, then said it again. \u201cI don\u2019t understand. You understand? I\u2019ll come over there and smack them glasses straight off your face. That\u2019s what I\u2019ll do.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Benn stayed in his seat, Garcia kept going, playing to the crowd at Fanatics Fest. \u201cYou won\u2019t do shit. I promise you won\u2019t do shit. You won\u2019t do shit,\u201d Garcia repeated, before turning the line into a chant. \u201cWho want to do shit? Who want to do shit?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Benn had spent the earlier portion of the press conference in a flat, dismissive register, and his refusal to match Garcia\u2019s volume seemed to feed the exchange. \u201cHe\u2019s like a big child. He\u2019s like a spoiled brat. Throws his toys out of the pram on social media throwing little tantrums,\u201d Benn said. \u201cI\u2019m not really too concerned about this little influencer to my right. He ain\u2019t a fighter. He can say whatever he wants. Ain\u2019t going to make no difference come September the 12th.\u201d<\/p>\n
Benn pointed to his record in long fights as the proof. \u201cI don\u2019t quit. I don\u2019t stay down,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Garcia rejected the framing outright. \u201cNot going to make it to 12. He\u2019s not going to make it to 12. There\u2019s not going to be a 12 round war. I promise you that,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cWait till I smack you up and make you quit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The insults turned personal from there. With the fight set for Mexican Independence Day weekend in Las Vegas, Garcia told Benn, \u201cYou quit. You have no heart,\u201d and, \u201cYou\u2019re not Mexican, bro. You ain\u2019t got the heart.\u201d Both men eventually left their seats during the face-off, and security stepped between them before the event closed.<\/p>\n
The confrontation came three days after the fight was made official<\/a> for T-Mobile Arena, where Garcia (25-2, 20 KOs) makes the first defense of the WBC welterweight title he won from Mario Barrios in February. Benn (25-1, 14 KOs) enters as the mandatory challenger, receiving the first world title shot of his career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Conor Benn needed only one sentence to send Ryan Garcia out of his chair on Saturday in New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-809167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}