It’s been quite the year for boxer Ryan Garcia. The 25-year old Garcia posted a massive win over Devin Haney in April, but that win came with him weighing in 3.2 pounds over the championship limit, meaning that he didn’t gain Haney’s World Boxing Championship super lightweight title.
In May, the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association notified parties that Garcia had tested positive for performance-enhancing drug Ostarine. And on June 20, Garcia settled with the New York Athletic Commission, accepting a one-year boxing suspension and forfeiting his purse. But Garcia has acted even more erratically since then, and his bizarre social media activity Thursday has now seen him expelled from the WBC by president Mauricio Sulaimán:
Exercising my authority as president of the WBC , I am hereby expelling Ryan Garcia from any activity with our organization. We reject any form of discrimination. I fear for Ryan well being as he has declined multiple attempts for our help with mental health and substance abuse pic.twitter.com/pCIOH2am7B
— Mauricio Sulaiman (@wbcmoro) July 4, 2024
What exactly did Garcia do? Well, that comes with a significant content and language warning. To start with, on a X/Twitter space, he used the n-word multiple times. There, he also compared himself to the Ku Klux Klan, and made disparaging remarks about George Floyd, the Black man whose killing by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020 sparked a wave of protests:
Ryan Garcia: ‘I hate n*ggers, I’m anti-black, I’m the KKK. Hey, let’s go bring George Floyd back to life and go kill that n*gger again’…
I can’t believe this is who ppl were dying on a hill for? 🙃 pic.twitter.com/cT5P7TKP0L
— The 505 🥊 (@the505way) July 4, 2024
Also on that space, Garcia made anti-Muslim remarks:
Ryan Garcia expressed his HATRED for Muslims when Sneako joined the X space..
“F*CK YOU & F*CK MUSLIMS” 😳 pic.twitter.com/beTgDU1lWg
— clip 🛸 (@clippedszn) July 4, 2024
It’s understandable why the WBC doesn’t want to be associated with Garcia around these kinds of rants. And this is just the latest odd behavior from him. Beyond that weight miss ahead of the Haney fight, he and Haney scuffled at a promotional appearance at the Empire State building. Garcia was then was kicked out of Citi Field by the New York Mets, who cancelled the planned first pitches from the two boxers to avoid an on-field incident. And Garcia went off on the team with profane rants on social media:
— RYAN GARCIA (@RyanGarcia) April 16, 2024
I will expose the Mets so bad and the mlb
— RYAN GARCIA (@RyanGarcia) April 16, 2024
It will be interesting to see how other organizations react to these latest comments from Garcia. Just Wednesday, UFC fighter Dan Ige suggested a “No weigh in, no takedowns” fight with Garcia at the Sphere in Las Vegas, and Garcia responded (in a since-deleted tweet) “Heard a gay ufc fighter called me out to fight at the sphere. Whenever you want. I don’t give a f***.” That’s obviously far from an actually-signed deal, but we’ll see if organizations like the UFC are willing to work with Garcia after these latest remarks from him.
[Mauricio Sulaimán on X/Twitter]
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.