Conor Benn has poured cold water on a potential unification match, which could have become realistic if he manages to dethrone Ryan Garcia.
The pair will collide at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena on September 12, with Garcia making a first defence of his WBC world welterweight title.
He claimed the belt with arguably a career-best performance against Mario Barrios, who he dropped and unanimously outpointed in February.
It is never easy to predict what version of Garcia will turn up, however, as his previous outing resulted in a convincing points defeat to Rolando Romero in May 2025.
This followed a year-long doping ban, though, and with the 28-year-old coming off a vastly improved display, he is heavily favoured to retain his title against Benn.
Not only does Garcia boast speed advantage but it is worth considering, too, that Benn has not made 147lbs since 2022, back when he tested positive for banned substance clomifene.
More recently, the 29-year-old has insisted that Garcia will be his last welterweight opponent, while telling Ring Magazine that he could subsequently campaign as high as super-middleweight.
“There’s no excuses – it’s just my last fight at 147[lbs] to dominate, get the belt and move on. Then [I’ll move up to] 168[lbs].”
By outlining his desire to abandon any opportunities at 147lbs, Benn has effectively ruled himself out of a clash with Teofimo Lopez, who claimed his WBA welterweight strap by dethroning Romero last month.
This is in spite of the fact that his manager, Keith Connolly, who also represents Lopez, is attempting to bypass a mandatory obligation against Jack Catterall so that ‘The Takeover’ can face the winner of Garcia-Benn, or perhaps fellow champions Devin Haney or Liam Paro, in his next outing.
If Benn sticks to his word, the WBC welterweight world title will be made vacant and the sanctioning body will then name the two top contenders who will compete for it, with Souleymane Cissokho, Raul Curiel, Brian Norman Jr and Richardson Hitchins behind Benn in the top five.
