Ryan Garcia Plans To Retire From Boxing At 26, Eyes MMA Fight With Conor McGregor

22-year-old superstar Ryan Garcia is coming off the singlehanded best performance of his career, where he became the first man to finish Luke Campbell, doing so in round seven with a vicious shovel hook to the body, claiming the interim WBC lightweight championship in the process.

Garcia improved his record to 21-0 with this victory, securing the 18th knockout of his professional career. He called out WBA lightweight champion Gervonta Davis following his win, though he’s now the mandatory challenger for undisputed WBC lightweight champion Devin Haney.

He was on Mike Tyson’s podcast recently, where Tyson called ‘Tank’ Davis on a video chat, where Garcia reigned down all sorts of trash talk, including Davis would need a stepstool in order to hit him, with him being 5’5” and Garcia being 5’10”, as well as the fact he believes he’d finish Davis inside two rounds.

‘Tank’ may be much shorter than Garcia, but he showed everyone in his last fight what he can do to taller, rangier opponents, and he himself is 24-0 with 23 knockouts.

Garcia went onto The Rich Eisen Show and gave us some insight into his fighting future, including that he’d like a potential bout against Conor McGregor.

Garcia stated he doesn’t see himself fighting past 26-years-old, which is kind of hard to believe. No one retires that young, and if he’s planning a mixed martial arts contest to throw into the mix as well, it’s a stretch.

There are however two exceptions that’ll keep Garcia around. One, if he ever becomes an underdog in a fight.

Of course, he’ll be the underdog in some contests coming up, but past 26, once he’s established as the very best, rather than one of the four kings, he will continue competing, should he become an underdog. We’ve got four years to see if that’s true.

Garcia has a big notion to prove doubters wrong, which, you know, who doesn’t? Two, he would like to silence his critics about his overall fighting abilities. He wants to ‘demonstrate those abilities as a warrior beyond boxing’.

Garcia then mentioned Conor McGregor’s name: “I will go to MMA to prove a point that God is greatest. And I’ll go beat whoever it is in MMA they say I won’t beat. If it has to be Conor McGregor, I will.”

The young prodigy from Victorville, California also stated that this isn’t a clout chase, but rather how he feels on the matter. He truly does believe he’s something special, and from what we’ve seen, it cannot be denied.

Do you believe Ryan Garcia retires by 26, and better yet, do you think he’ll ever be matched up against The Notorious?