Ryan Garcia needed less than four minutes to blow away Conor Benn before turning his sights on the rest of the welterweight division.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old American demolished Benn inside two rounds on Saturday night to retain his World Boxing Council championship at 147lb, dropping the British challenger with a concussive right hand before the referee stepped in moments later at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The sensational finish ignited the mostly pro-Garcia crowd of 18,855 on Mexican Independence Day weekend. Then, with Te\u00f3fimo L\u00f3pez<\/a> taunting him from ringside and threatening to storm the ring, Garcia made it clear he was ready to take on all comers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got to clear this [division] out,\u201d said Garcia (26-2, 21 KOs), who was making the first defense of the welterweight title he won by flooring and outpointing Mario Barrios at the same arena in February.<\/p>\n Benn (25-2, 14 KOs), who had promised \u201ctenacity, ferocity, spite\u201d throughout an acrimonious build-up and vowed to pressure Garcia from the first bell, made good on that pledge. He set a frenetic pace in the opening frame, bolting from his corner and dragging Garcia into heavy exchanges. Benn scored well to the body and caught the champion with a shot to the back of the head that went unpunished, while Garcia repeatedly threw his signature left hook in an ominous statement of intent.<\/p>\n The decisive sequence came early in the second when Benn was attempting to close the distance. Garcia caught him flush on the chin with a right hand he never appeared to see coming, sending him crashing to the canvas in a heap. Benn made it back to his feet but was plainly hurt, prompting the champion to close in immediately and unload with both hands until third man Thomas Taylor intervened at the 1min 25sec mark.<\/p>\n Ryan Garcia looks on after knocking down Conor Benn during their WBC welterweight title fight at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Photograph: Cooper Neill\/Zuffa Boxing\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cThe first round I was just saying, \u2018Just protect yourself. He\u2019s going to get crazy. Just really worry about just watching what he\u2019s doing, download, download, download,\u2019\u201d Garcia said. \u201cThen I started hitting him. I was like, \u2018Oh wow, I\u2019m already timing him.\u2019 And then the second round I said, \u2018I\u2019m just going to stand my ground a little bit. I\u2019m going to get my respect real quick.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then when I did, I ended up knocking him out.\u201d<\/p>\n The defeat thwarted Benn\u2019s bid to follow in the footsteps of his father, Nigel, who held the WBC super-middleweight title more than three decades ago. The 29-year-old from Essex had not fought at the welterweight limit in four and a half years after campaigning as high as middleweight and described the process of returning to 147lb as going through the \u201cpits of hell\u201d. He nevertheless came in at 146lb at Friday\u2019s weigh-in, his lightest in seven years.<\/p>\n Garcia disputed any suggestion that the stoppage was premature. \u201cThey could have stopped it when he was on the ground,\u201d he said. \u201cHe was out of it. I looked at him in the eyes and he wasn\u2019t even there. If it would\u2019ve kept going, you would\u2019ve seen a man unconscious on the floor. It\u2019s the ref\u2019s job to stop the fight when it needs to be done, to protect the fighter.\u201d<\/p>\n The fight was co-promoted by Zuffa Boxing, the fledgling venture of UFC supremo Dana White<\/a> which poached Benn in April after he had spent his entire 10-year professional career with Eddie Hearn\u2019s Matchroom. Garcia remains under contract with Oscar De La Hoya\u2019s Golden Boy, which spent months sparring with Zuffa over the matchup before the sides came to a deal.<\/p>\n Ryan Garcia lands a punch on Conor Benn during their WBC welterweight title fight. Photograph: Josh Hedges\/Zuffa Boxing\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Saturday\u2019s spectacle also represented the latest step in the rehabilitation of two fighters whose careers had recently been threatened by doping controversies. Garcia tested positive<\/a> for the banned anabolic agent ostarine around his April 2024 victory over Devin Haney<\/a>. The result was overturned to a no-contest<\/a> and Garcia was suspended for one year, with his team blaming contaminated supplements.<\/p>\n Benn\u2019s ordeal was more complicated. Two positive tests for clomifene emerged before his proposed 2022 fight with Chris Eubank Jr, keeping him from fighting in Britain for two years. Benn maintained his innocence throughout and was ultimately cleared<\/a> by the National Anti-Doping Panel.<\/p>\n Yet there they were on Saturday, reportedly earning around $15m apiece in one of the biggest fights of the year. Garcia leaves Las Vegas with his belt, his reputation burnished and no shortage of lucrative options.<\/p>\n Indeed, the televised post-fight interview quickly descended into the sort of chaos that has followed Garcia, one of boxing\u2019s first Gen-Z superstars, throughout his tumultuous career in the spotlight. He spotted L\u00f3pez at ringside and summoned the WBA titleholder toward the ring, shouting: \u201cUnified time. Where you at, Teo?\u201d<\/p>\n When L\u00f3pez responded, Garcia escalated matters. \u201cYou want to get crazy, we going to get crazy,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll beat your ass right now.\u201d<\/p>\n Te\u00f3fimo L\u00f3pez is restrained by security after Ryan Garcia\u2019s victory over Conor Benn. Photograph: Al Powers\/Zuffa Boxing\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Then came a challenge to Haney, the WBO champion and another interested observer at ringside given the unfinished business surrounding their drug-tainted first encounter. \u201cHopefully we get to beat Devin Haney\u2019s ass again for undisputed,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cFuck the Haneys!\u201d<\/p>\n Nor are those Garcia\u2019s only options. Four-division world champion Shakur Stevenson, campaigning one division below at 140lb for now, was also in the arena on Saturday as a member of the Paramount+ commentary team and expressed interest in a fight with Garcia, who remains one of the sport\u2019s most marketable American stars.<\/p>\n Later, Garcia made his immediate preference clear. \u201cI want to unify against Te\u00f3fimo,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that\u2019s the move. It\u2019s a huge fight and Te\u00f3\u2019s an entertaining dude and it\u2019s going to be a hell of a buildup and he\u2019s a good fighter too, so let\u2019s run it.\u201d<\/p>\n Where Benn goes from here is less clear. He had already suggested this would be his final appearance at welterweight after describing the arduous weight cut to 147lb. Still not yet 30 and a proven attraction in Britain, he is unlikely to lack decent options at a more natural weight. He was transported to hospital after the fight for observation without speaking to reporters, but struck a gracious note on social media<\/a>. \u201cNot my night, no excuses,\u201d he wrote, calling Garcia \u201ca great champion\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryan Garcia needed less than four minutes to blow away Conor Benn before turning his sights on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":890748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-890747","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\/890747","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=890747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/890748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}