Ryan Garcia sidelined with hand injury as woes build

Boxer Ryan Garcia has undergone hand surgery for an injury reported during training for his recent fight against Rolando Romero in New York.

Garcia, 24-2 (20) with one no-contest, will not be able to train for six weeks following surgery for an as-yet-unknown problem. It has also been reported by multiple outlets that the California fighter had multiple cortisone injections in the runup to the fight rather than having the event called off. The injury is understood to be to his right hand.

Garcia’s last fight saw him lose a twelve-round decision to Roland ‘Rolly’ Romero at Times Square in New York in what was considered to be an upset. According to Compubox, which counts the number and types of punches thrown during a fight, Garcia landed only 17.5 punches per round and threw a total of 48 power punches. Garcia was also knocked down in the second round.

Dr Stephen Shin, who has performed similar surgeries on Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and Vasyl Lomachenko, is understood to be working with Garcia in order to return him to full health. Shin is currently a professor of orthopaedic surgery at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles.

This tallies with the knowledge that Garcia is currently under a thirty-day suspension with the New York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC). In an email to The Independent, NYSAC confirmed that Garcia would need orthopaedic clearance before he would be allowed to return to the ring.

Geoffrey Knott/Matchroom

The roadmap for Garcia after the New York event had been for him to face Devin Haney in a fight later this year. Haney, 32-0 (15), beat Jose Carlos Ramirez by unanimous decision on the same card. The two fighters, who fought last year in a bout that was later declared a no-contest due to a failed drugs test from Garcia, were set to rematch each other later in 2025.

Those plans, which were swiped by Garcia’s loss to Romero, now seem to have moved further away with news of Garcia’s injury, the surgery required to fix it, and the recuperation.

And recent days have seen promoter Oscar De La Hoya intimate that rather than face Haney, that Garcia would move instead towards a rematch with Romero.