Ryan Garcia and Conor Benn are set to square off in Las Vegas on Saturday, and four-division world champion Shakur Stevenson has had his final say on the battle.
Benn has not fought at welterweight in over four years, but was controversially installed as the mandatory challenger for Garcia’s title, despite both of his 2025 outings against Chris Eubank Jr coming up at middleweight.
Garcia finally got his hands on his first world title when he got the better of Mario Barrios to claim the WBC crown and he now seeks a first defence of the belt that will tee up major unification showdowns with Teofimo Lopez (WBA) and Devin Haney (WBO).
Speaking with FightHype, Stevenson – who defeated Garcia as an amateur back in 2013 – forecasted a victory for his fellow American, but noted a comment from two-time super-welterweight ruler Fernando Vargas, who felt as though ‘King Ry’ was the more likely of the two to ‘quit’ in the contest.
“I like Ryan Garcia [to win the fight]. You know what is crazy? I really like Conor Benn as a person, though. He is really a cool dude, if you really talk with him. I done been around Conor Benn on several different occasions and every time that I have been around him he has always been a real cool motherf***a.
“I just don’t think that he has got the experience to beat Ryan, I think that is what is going to come out. But, I seen something with Fernando Vargas where he said, ‘which one of them guys quit?’, and I said ‘damn’.
“I never really thought about that but that is like a fighters mentality and Ryan did kind of quit in one of his fights and Conor Benn has never quit. It is an interesting thing and maybe Conor Benn may shock the world and beat Ryan Garcia but me, knowing Ryan, Ryan should beat him.”
All will be revealed when Garcia-Benn takes place this weekend at the T-Mobile Arena.
