Ryan Garcia defended his WBC welterweight title on Saturday and proceeded to call out a retired Terence Crawford during the aftermath. Now, a former world champion believes that Crawford could lose his undefeated record to the Californian if he returns.
Garcia needed only two rounds to kickstart his welterweight reign in style, authoritatively beating Conor Benn down and drawing an early stoppage that has enhanced his already global level of superstardom.
However, for Garcia to truly take over and become the ‘face of boxing’, as forecasted by Dana White, ‘King Ry’ may need the name of a pound-for-pound star on his résumé and it seems as though 39-year-old Crawford is his preferred target.
Speaking to FightHype, former IBF super-featherweight world champion Joseph ‘JoJo’ Diaz warned Crawford that Garcia is more than capable of hurting him.
“Absolutely [Garcia is capable of challenging Crawford]. Anything can happen in boxing and everybody is human. At the end of the day, everybody bleeds.
“Terence Crawford has made a statement in the sport of boxing and he is one hell of a fighter, Ryan Garcia is a hell of a fighter, as well. It’s boxing, anything can happen and you have seen with Terence Crawford, he has got hurt in the past so it without doubt Ryan Garcia could hurt him.”
Although, Diaz went on to suggest that Garcia should work on his defence, believing that he saw a red flag in his performance at the weekend, despite it being a two-round demolition job.
“If Ryan Garcia comes with that [peek-a-boo] style like how he did for a couple seconds in the last fight with Conor Benn, I think that Terence Crawford could take advantage of those opportunities and I think that he can really hurt Ryan, as well.
“That peek-a-boo style of defence is not good and I think that people will capitalise on that, so I think that he [Garcia] needs to work on that.”
Garcia looks poised for a future clash with WBA welterweight titleholder Teofimo Lopez in an intriguing title unification, whilst Diaz is gearing up for a first bout on British soil as he takes on Brian Hyslop in a bareknuckle affair in Newcastle on Saturday, October 10.
