Jake Paul, Jorge Masvidal, other fighters react to Ryan Garcia's insanely unexpected win over Devin Haney
By Amy Kaplan
On Saturday night Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia met in the boxing ring. Pretty much everyone thought Garcia had no chance at even making it out of the first round with Haney after months of bizarre behavior called his mental health into question.
But everyone was dead wrong. Not only did he make it out of the first but he went all 12 rounds knocking down Haney multiple times. It was a clear and dominant win for Garcia who will not have the title due to missing weight.
"Come on guys, you really thought I was crazy? You gone and lost your own mind," Garcia said in the ring after the fight. "You guys hate on me cuz I'm pretty and sh*t."
The MMA community was tuned in for the fight, there were no UFC fights on and it was a perfect storm for fighters and fans alike.
A lot of the tweets were about the referee who penalized Garcia a point and then deemed several of Haney's knockdowns not knockdowns after all.
After the fight, Haney reacted to his first career loss, "I'm disappointed with my performance but I showed I'm a true champion because I kept fighting after getting knocked down." In addition to losing his first fight, he also suffered the first knockdown of his long and illustrious career. "I was more surprised than hurt," Haney said of the knockdowns. Both fighters said they would be willing to fight each other again, especially after one judge had the fight scored as a draw.
Garcia has been underfire for controversial and questionable behavior leading up to the fight but joked about it on the microphone after the fight laughing as saying no one can take a joke.
Former UFC champion Israel Adesanya didn't comment on the fight but he did place a major wager. According to Adesanya himself, he bet $20,000 on Haney to win by knockout over Garcia. Safe to say he's not feeling so great right now.