Ryan Garcia sent forthcoming opponent Devin Haney a cease and desist over a Mexican page on his website selling t-shirts.
The Golden Boy star ordered Haney to take down the ‘Mexicans for Haney’ section of his shop despite wearing eye-catching dismissals of “The Dream” during his workouts.
Haney revealed what happened when fans questioned him about the shop page, which is now showing a 404 removed message to customers.
“Hit me with a cease and desist,” said Haney before taking down the page of t-shirts.
One said, ‘Ryan is not La Raza’ [not Mexican], while the other had an image of Garcia taking a knee against Gervonta Davis. Garcia’s complaints were heeded, and Haney took the page down to comply with the cease and desist.
The incident adds another element to the drama as Garcia and Haney continue their back-and-forth insults with less than a week remaining until fight night.
Despite the animosity, ticket sales have been slow to take off as two fighters from the West Coast compete on the East. The decision to stage the event at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn was berated by Garcia when it was announced. The super lightweight thought Las Vegas was a far better option.
However, Canelo’s fight on May 4 requires the Nevada calendar to be free of any boxing events competing for sales two weeks before the event. Therefore, Golden Boy had no option but to look elsewhere. Even then, Los Angeles may still have been better served to accommodate a sellout.
Haney said: “The reason the [Ryan Garcia] fight is not happening in Vegas is that they don’t want to affect Canelo ticket sales.”
Leonard Ellerbe, who oversaw Davis selling out Brooklyn against Rolly Romero, added: “Every fight can’t go in Vegas for several reasons. Brooklyn is fire. Tank sold that out and broke the arena record. The energy in the building was crazy. As a Twitter Promoter, you should know the answer to your question!
“They wouldn’t lose money in Vegas. They won’t in Brooklyn. It’s a good fight. But there are levels to doing the business.”
There remain thousands of tickets on sale for Garcia vs Haney, and there are six days to go. It would take a monumental effort by Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy to shift what’s left.
Prices have already fallen twice. They’d need to fall again considerably to have a chance of being packed to the rafters.
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