Former WBC interim lightweight champion and social media star Ryan Garcia has sustained a serious hand injury and will have his scheduled Nov. 27 fight with Joseph Diaz Jr. postponed.
Garcia, who won the WBC interim lightweight title with a seventh-round technical knockout win over Luke Campbell in January, will undergo surgery Monday to recover from the injury, which was sustained in a training session according to BoxingScene.com.
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“I want to thank my fans for all the continued support,” Garcia said in a tweet. “… I will undergo surgery at Cedars-Sinai on Monday. I promise early 2022 I will return better, faster, and stronger than ever. I love you guys!”
Garcia and Diaz originally agreed to fight on Oct. 8. Diaz won the WBC interim lightweight title with a unanimous decision victory over Javier Fortuna in July.
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“Ryan is a very resilient young man,” Oscar De La Hoya, Golden Boy’s chairman and CEO, said in a release. “We hope he takes the necessary time to heal and recover. As a fighter, I understand the importance of taking hand injuries seriously, and I am glad Ryan is doing the right thing and addressing the injury quickly. We wish him a speedy recovery.”
At 23 years old, Garcia has won 18 of his first 21 fights by knockout and is the fifth-ranked fighter at lightweight by ESPN. He has 8.8 million Instagram followers and has earned a reputation for his training videos showing off his hand speed.
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