Having previously shared four rounds of sparring with Conor Benn, former world champion Shawn Porter has weighed in on how the British fighter might perform against Ryan Garcia.
Benn, known as “The Destroyer,” recently secured a comfortable 10-round points victory over Regis Prograis on the undercard of Tyson Fury vs Arslanbek Makhmudov last month. That win kept him on a winning streak at a catchweight of 150 pounds, following his revenge victory over Chris Eubank Jr in a middleweight rematch last November.
As the WBC’s top-ranked welterweight contender, Benn is now expected to move back down to 147 pounds to pursue a showdown with Ryan Garcia. Garcia claimed the WBC world title in February by dethroning Mario Barrios with a lopsided points victory, after flooring his opponent in the opening round.
That victory marked Garcia’s first win since he scored an eighth-round knockout over Oscar Duarte in 2023. His subsequent fights included a no-contest against Devin Haney and a unanimous decision loss to Rolando Romero. Now 27, Garcia is aiming for a more consistent run and plans to defend his title later this year, possibly in the summer, with mandatory challenger Benn emerging as a likely opponent.
While acknowledging Benn’s “versatility,” Porter told Boxing King Media that he believes Garcia’s speed could lead to a dramatic finish.
“Based on how Ryan Garcia looked in his last fight, it looks like he beats Conor Benn. The style clash favours Ryan Garcia because of his speed – because of his power from the outside – so it’s definitely a tough fight for Conor Benn. I would say 60/40 [that] Ryan Garcia wins that fight, possibly [by] KO. But Conor is very tough. That’s what I already knew about him, but I got to see it first-hand when we sparred. He’s much more versatile than [what] we saw in the first fight with Eubank. He comes back in the rematch against Eubank and we see the versatility, we see the speed, the foot movement and things of that nature. Those were the things I saw when I sparred him for four easy rounds.”
Despite their respective histories of failed doping tests – or perhaps partly because of it – a clash between Garcia and Benn is likely to draw significant attention.
