{"id":722668,"date":"2026-08-01T11:37:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T11:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/722668\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T11:37:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T11:37:28","slug":"hearn-garcia-will-be-much-too-heavy-handed-for-drained-benn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/722668\/","title":{"rendered":"Hearn: Garcia will be ‘much too heavy-handed’ for drained Benn"},"content":{"rendered":"

The infuriating nature of their very public split in February notwithstanding, Hearn honestly can\u2019t envision Benn<\/a> beating Ryan Garcia<\/a> in their fight for Garcia\u2019s WBC welterweight title. Matchroom Boxing\u2019s chairman doesn\u2019t think a physically spent Benn\u2019s power or chin will be sufficient enough for the British contender to upset Garcia when they square off September 12 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like Conor Benn at 147 pounds,\u201d Hearn told The Ring. \u201cWe saw him at 150 for the Regis Prograis fight. He looked like he lacked power. He looked tired at the weight down there and I think Ryan will be much too heavy-handed for him. But he\u2019s got big balls and he\u2019ll have a right go. I just don\u2019t think at 147 he can win that fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

England\u2019s Benn, 29, is contractually obligated to squeeze down to the welterweight limit of 147 for the first time since April 2022. He stopped South Africa\u2019s Chris van Heerden in the second round of that fight four years ago, but he hasn\u2019t weighed in lower than 149\u00bd pounds for any of his five subsequent bouts.<\/p>\n

As Hearn mentioned, the contracted catch weight was 150 pounds for Benn\u2019s underwhelming 10-round points victory against Prograis on April 11<\/a> at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.Benn (25-1, 14 KOs) also hasn\u2019t produced a knockout since his victory over van Heerden, which took place five months before Benn\u2019s two failed tests for clomiphene, a banned substance, were revealed during the week of his hastily scrapped domestic showdown with family rival Chris Eubank Jr.<\/a> in October 2022.<\/p>\n

Benn\u2019s lengthy, messy suspension in the United Kingdom prevented him from fighting Eubank on British soil until April 2025. He avenged his unanimous points loss to Eubank by recording a convincing 12-round win in their rematch November 15<\/a>.Hearn isn\u2019t involved in this bout, but he is intrigued by his former fighter\u2019s battle against Garcia<\/a> (25-2, 20 KOs, 1 NC) \u2013 a popular, polarizing figure from Victorville, California. Paramount+<\/a> will stream their 12-round fight to subscribers in the United States and DAZN<\/a> will offer it to customers in the UK and Ireland. Hearn is looking forward, above all else, to watching how the promotion unfolds now that this Ring event has been officially announced.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s an interesting fight,\u201d Hearn said. \u201cI look more sometimes at the dynamics and the politics of it all, which I think has been fascinating because obviously you got a lotta people who think they can do whatever they want, right? And disregard contracts, whether they be promotional or broadcast contracts and stuff like that. And, you know, you had a situation where it was always gonna be a kinda Zuffa fight, or how they wanted it [to be that] on Paramount, with no DAZN, no Oscar De La Hoya, you know, no Ring card, really. Now it\u2019s a Ring card, co-promoted by Oscar De La Hoya and Zuffa, on DAZN in the second biggest market of the fight, which is in the UK. I like the fight \u2013 it\u2019s two very explosive fighters. But I think it\u2019s a much bigger fight in the UK than it is in the U.S. because I think more people in the UK know Ryan Garcia and Conor Benn than they do in the U.S. <\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody knows Ryan Garcia. No one really knows who Conor Benn is in the U.S. So, for DAZN to capture that fight from Sky Sports, which obviously [is partnered with Zuffa], is massive for them. And for Oscar to be co-promoting is great as well. And, by the way, I think that\u2019s brilliant for the fight. You\u2019re gonna have Dana [White] and Oscar up there now going at it. That\u2019s gonna make the fight bigger. Those are actually all the little intrinsic dynamics that make the fight bigger. Because I don\u2019t have any fighters in the fight, I look at it just from the business point of view with our partners, DAZN. And I think them and Golden Boy have done brilliantly because they\u2019ve taken a huge part of the fight, which is great for our platform.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keith Idec is a senior writer and columnist for The Ring. He can be reached on X @idecboxing.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The infuriating nature of their very public split in February notwithstanding, Hearn honestly can\u2019t envision Benn beating Ryan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[59273,2560,151516,6102,238836,101,6826,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-722668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-object-object","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-articles","tag-boxing-news","tag-fight-report","tag-sports","tag-the-ring","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}