Ryan Garcia Predicts Lucky Number 21 Knockout of Conor Benn
Ryan Garcia wants another highlight knockout, and he put a Vegas number on it. The WBC welterweight champion has 20 stoppages. He is calling the 21st for Saturday night.
“We’re in Vegas right? Lucky number 21,” Garcia said after making weight, wrapped in an American flag at a Zuffa Boxing backdrop.
He is 25-2 with 20 knockouts. A finish of Conor Benn would be knockout No. 21 in the same building where he won the belt from Mario Barrios in February. The graphic on the clip did not hedge. Ryan says knockout No. 21 is next.
Both men are officially on the scale now. Benn came in first at 146 pounds on Friday at the UFC Apex. Garcia sprinted in later at 145.5. The 147-pound limit held. The fight is on at T-Mobile Arena. Benn had not made a true welterweight limit in more than four years. Garcia had spent the week asking whether the Brit would even get there.
He still wants the stoppage. Garcia has said all week this will not go past five rounds. Lucky 21 is the same prediction with a casino punchline. Benn has never been stopped as a professional. Fourteen of his 25 wins ended inside the distance. He just survived a cut he called the pits of hell and smiled when 146 went up. Making weight is not the same as having legs in round six.
Garcia asked the Nevada commission earlier in the week to keep 8-ounce gloves even if Benn missed and the bout drifted over 148. He said that is why he fights at 147. It is more deadly with the smaller gloves. Benn did not miss. The smaller gloves are the ones they will use anyway.
The champion’s last knockout was not Barrios. That was a first-round knockdown and a decision. The last man he stopped in a world-title setting is further back on the résumé. The left hook is still the punch that built the highlights. Lucky 21 is Garcia telling Las Vegas he did not come here to box 12.
Benn’s corner will take the other side of that bet. He said he did not come to America to cuddle. He made the weight Garcia used as a needle. Nigel Benn has called the champion one-dimensional. If Garcia is one-dimensional, the dimension is the knockout. If Benn is right, the lucky number is just a clip.
Mexican Independence Day weekend is the date. Garcia is Mexican American and walked the interview in stars and stripes. The holiday card is still his. Teofimo Lopez already crashed the press conference wanting the winner. None of that happens if Benn turns the night into a war of attrition.
Garcia is a sizable favorite. Knockout betting sits close to even in some shops. That is the market agreeing the finish is live and the decision is not the product he is selling. Twenty knockouts in 25 wins is a finisher’s record with two losses and a no-contest in the other column. Davis stopped him. Romero beat him. Barrios could not live with him. Benn is the first defense.
Saturday is the only count that matters. Lucky 21 is a Vegas line from a champion who just made 145.5 and still wants the highlight. Benn is 146 and still standing. The number only becomes lucky if someone hits the canvas.
