Ryan Garcia looks past Gervonta Davis when naming the toughest fight of his career

Ryan Garcia has revealed his toughest opponent in 27 skilled outings, relatively surprisingly mentioning a fighter he defeated inside the distance.

Most would suspect the American’s “hardest fight” got here towards Gervonta Davis, who stopped ‘King Ry’ with a sickening seventh-round body shot of their 2023 encounter.

Alternatively, Rolando Romero gave Garcia a tricky night’s work in May 2025, when he scored a second-round knockdown earlier than profitable unanimously on the judges’ scorecards.

Devin Haney, too, represented a troublesome opponent when they collided in 2024, with Garcia edging a majority choice earlier than testing constructive for banned substance ostarine.

As a outcome, his victory was overturned to a no-contest, following which Garcia accomplished a year-long suspension earlier than returning to the ring towards Romero.

Interestingly sufficient, although, the reigning WBC world welterweight champion doesn’t think about Davis, Romero or Haney to be his toughest opponent.

Instead, the 27-year-old has DAZN that his most demanding project got here towards Oscar Duarte, who ultimately stopped with an eighth-round end in 2023.

“My hardest fight was Oscar Duarte – the one that Richardson Hitchins ducked. I knocked him out, but he was hard.”

Duarte was imagined to face Hitchins in February, just for the then-IBF world super-lightweight champion to drag out of their contest on the morning of fight evening.

This was reportedly as a result of Hitchins fell ailing throughout his try and hold underneath 150lbs, as per the IBF’s 10lb rehydration coverage.

While not having been given one other world title shot, Duarte is now gearing up for his all-Mexican conflict with Angel Fierro, which options on the undercard of Gilberto Ramirez vs David Benavidez this Saturday.