Ryan Garcia needed less than four minutes to blow away Conor Benn before turning his sights on the rest of the welterweight division. 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 Teófimo López taunting him from ringside and threatening to storm the ring, Garcia made it clear he was ready to take on all comers. Benn (25-2, 14 KOs), who had promised “tenacity, ferocity, spite” 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. 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. Just really worry about just watching what he’s doing, download, download, download,’” Garcia said. I was like, ‘Oh wow, I’m already timing him.’ And then the second round I said, ‘I’m just going to stand my ground a little bit.
I’m going to get my respect real quick.’ “And then when I did, I ended up knocking him out.” The defeat thwarted Benn’s 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 “pits of hell”. He nevertheless came in at 146lb at Friday’s weigh-in, his lightest in seven years.
Garcia disputed any suggestion that the stoppage was premature. I looked at him in the eyes and he wasn’t even there. If it would’ve kept going, you would’ve seen a man unconscious on the floor.
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