LOS ANGELES – This wasn’t about Ryan Garcia gaining an advantage over a smaller fighter.
Javier Fortuna’s promoter informed BoxingScene.com on Thursday that it was actually their side that requested a higher weight limit for their 12-round fight Saturday night at Crypto.com Arena. Fortuna felt he didn’t have enough time to get down to the 135-pound limit for a lightweight fight, therefore they agreed to box at the junior welterweight maximum of 140 pounds.
Both boxers consider themselves lightweights, but they were comfortable competing at this higher weight.
“It was agreed to because we only had seven weeks,” Sampson Lewkowicz, Fortuna’s promoter, told BoxingScene.com following a press conference at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel. “It’s normal. There’s no title at stake. It’s a good fight, but it was only seven weeks away when we made the decision. We made the agreement on the weight immediately, before we announced the fight, so it would be fair for everyone. Nobody was supposed to know, but Golden Boy did it right. They didn’t do like Canelo, by wanting it at 133 instead of 135.”
Fans reacted negatively toward Garcia on social media Thursday, when news of the higher contracted weight spread, because they suspected handlers for the “A” side pushed for it.
“It’s not true,” Lewkowicz said. “It was because it was only seven weeks [from the fight]. I said immediately, ‘We cannot make 135 because we weren’t given enough time. And we’re not an opponent that Canelo picked, where they can say you need to go to a certain weight and put it in the contract.’ He would’ve lost too much weight in a short time, and then [Garcia wins] the fight.”
The weight limit for Garcia’s previous fight was comparable. Garcia (22-0, 18 KOs), who officially weighed in at 138¾ pounds, dropped Ghana’s Emmanuel Tagoe (32-2, 15 KOs), who weighed in at 138¼, in the second round and soundly defeated him on all three scorecards April 9 at Alamodome in San Antonio.
The Dominican Republic’s Fortuna (37-3-1, 26 KOs, 2 NC), who stands approximately four inches shorter than Garcia, has fought at the junior welterweight limit only once in his 13-year pro career. That bout resulted in a no-contest when Fortuna fell out of the ring and hurt his head and neck during the fourth round against Adrian Granados in June 2018 at Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas.
“It’s not a problem,” Lewkowicz said. “Both of them were comfortable with the weight because it was not an elimination [match] and there was not any title at stake.”
DAZN will stream Garcia-Fortuna as the main event of an eight-bout card. The streaming service’s coverage is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. ET and 2 p.m. PT from the venue formerly known as Staples Center.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
