Ryan Garcia and Conor Benn are set to meet for the WBC welterweight title in Las Vegas, according to a report from Fijivillage. That report doesn’t include a date, a venue inside the city or a broadcast partner, so treat the fine print as pending until somebody holds a press conference.
If those two names feel like they were just in the same sentence, they were. Garcia stopped Benn last month, Bloody Elbow reported, a win the outlet said further cemented Garcia as one of the biggest names in the sport. So this is a sequel. One guy finished the other inside the distance a few weeks ago, and now there’s green and gold hardware attached to the second installment.
Garcia’s leverage
The timing matters for King Ry. Bloody Elbow noted the 28-year-old has only one fight left on his current deal with Golden Boy Promotions, and the outlet wrote that it seems likely Dana White will want to add him to his roster. That makes every move Garcia makes right now a free-agency audition.
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He has also been fielding interest from outside traditional boxing. BKB Bare Knuckle Boxing posted a photo of its CEO, David Tetreault, playing golf with Garcia, with a caption teasing a conversation about “what the future could hold.” Tetreault walked that back during BKB 60 fight week in Newcastle, England, telling Bloody Elbow the talks are about Garcia serving as some kind of brand ambassador rather than stepping into the Trigon.
“He is the face of boxing right now,” Tetreault said. “We just played a great match of golf.”
The bare-knuckle promotion is chasing a different Garcia, though. Tetreault said BKB is in deep talks with Ryan’s younger brother Sean, who beat Abraham Morales last month for his first win in three years, with the goal of steering him toward a fight with Amado Vargas. Vargas stopped Sean in 2024 and made his BKB debut in July.
Benn’s bank account
Benn’s side of this is all about the money. Yahoo Sports reported that Benn inked a reported $15 million deal with Dana White’s Zuffa Boxing despite never winning a world title. That contract became ammunition for UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland, who pointed to Benn’s check during his own pay standoff with the UFC and called the promotion’s offer for a title defense against Nassourdine Imavov “insulting.”
“Boxing there is more money and its significantly easier,” Strickland wrote on X.
Garcia’s name is also floating around the influencer circuit. Jake Paul included him on a wish list he posted on X, sandwiched between Darren Till and KSI.
My take
I love a rematch when the first fight leaves an argument. A stoppage last month doesn’t leave much of one, and Benn walks into a WBC title fight on the back of losing to the same man. That’s the price of a $15 million contract and a famous last name, and I’m not going to pretend boxing ever handed out title shots on merit alone. The person this really helps is Garcia. He gets a belt fight against an opponent he already finished, with one fight left on his Golden Boy paper and Dana White reportedly circling. If he stops Benn twice in two tries, his asking price in free agency starts at Benn’s $15 million and goes up from there.
