Composed Ryan Garcia begins another fight to answer questions

By Norm Frauenheim

It was a different Ryan Gracia than the one who shocked, outraged and frightened throughout a long-running social-media ride to hell-and-back a year ago. He was composed, thoughtful. There was even a hint of humility. Was it real? Will it last? 

Those are questions only Garcia can answer as he resumes a career interrupted by the craziness that surrounded his date with Devin Haney, a fight preceded by Garcia chugging a beer on the weigh-in scale and one that turned into a virtual accident. It’ll be exactly a year this Sunday, Easter Sunday, since a bout that  included a positive PED test, suspension, lawsuit, reported settlement and repeated denials. The hangover, framed by the questions, lingers.

There were no simple answers last April. There were none this April at a public workout in San Diego Thursday a few weeks before Garcia answers an opening bell for the first time in more than a year May 2 against Rollie Romero in Times Square, about eight miles of roadwork through New York traffic from the scene of his last ring appearance against Haney at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.

Garcia, who is coming off a year-long suspension for testing positive for Ostarine, was calm. But will that prove to be only the calm before another storm? The answer to that one rests in what is about to transpire before a card that figures to get more attention for where it is than who is on it. 

For Garcia, it’s a tuneup. For Haney, it is too. He’s scheduled to fight Jose Carlos Ramirez. Teofimo Lopez will also be there in a defense of his junior-welterweight title against Arnold Barboza Jr. Hopefully, the weather will include only punches and no rain. 

“Looking to get the rust off,’’ Garcia said to a circle of reporters before a live-streamed workout at BXNG Club in Oceanside.

Looking to get some answers, too.

Garcia made some news Thursday, repeating that he had an interest in fighting welterweight champion Jaron “Boots” Ennis, the acknowledged best at 147 pounds today. He also mentioned Mario Barrios and Brian Norman.

“I’m excited, but do I want to fight somebody else that would make me feel more like a champion?’’ he said. “Whoever the champions are …any of those guys. I will win the word championship if I beat any of those guys.’’

But, mostly, the Friday night card — the first in a Cinco de Mayo triple-header  including Canelo Álvarez-William Scull Saturday in Saudi Arabia and Naoya Inoue-Ramon Cardenas Sunday at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena — is thought to be a steppingstone to a Garcia-Haney rematch, which is projected for a day in October. The planned sequel is full of immense potential to settle a lot of differences still there after Garcia’s three-knockdown beatdown of Haney in bout later changed to no-contest because of the PED positive.

“I want the Devin Haney rematch, 100 percent,’’ said Garcia, who has virtually disappeared from the wild social-media presence he occupied a year ago. “I need it and I’m going to do it for USADA this time. I want the Devin Haney rematch so bad. I really want it. There’s some personal bad blood there but it’s not going to overrule me but it’s got some extra oomph in there, you know, when you’re fighting and put it on him even more. 

“Then you got Bill’s (Haney’s father and trainer) crazy antics, and he’s constantly talking nonstop, and that makes me want to put a whooping in a little bit more. This is an opportunity to do it again, and I think after that, I’ll put a stamp on that and move forward.”

Garcia’s mention of USADA — a drug-testing agency — is a reference to the Ostarine controversy. Garcia tested positive twice for the substance — an anabolic agent, according to drug testing and New York State Athletic Commission. 

But he denied it after the fight. And he denied it again Thursday.

“I did a lot of things, but for me it was more mental,’’ Garcia said. “Everything was mental. It took a toll on my mentality, because I know I didn’t take steroids or anything like that.

“It was tough for me to overcome that, but throughout the year I got over it, re-focused myself, and got blessed with this opportunity.’’

This time, Garcia denies it without any of the angry histrionics that were there for weeks after the fight.  A year later, Gracia says it a matter-of-fact tone.

Still, it was an acknowledgement that Garcia knows what a lot of people are thinking. Hall of Famer and ringside analyst Roy Jones Jr, expressed it in an interview this week with AKHi TV, a You Tube boxing network. Jones gives a Haney a chance to win the rematch.

“If you (don’t) knock him out when you’re illegal, how you gonna beat him when you’re not illegal?’’ Jones is quoted as saying.

For Garcia, there’s only one opportunity. Only one answer. First, there’s Romero. Then, there’s the projected rematch.

“I felt that this is my chance to come back and show everybody I can really fight,” he said.