Ryan Garcia Plans To Leave Boxing At 26, May Transition To MMA

Ryan Garcia doesn’t intend to stick around the sport of boxing for much longer but he could find himself inside the cage.

Garcia is the newly-minted interim WBC Lightweight Champion. He captured the gold by knocking out Luke Campbell in what many expected to be his toughest test to date. The fight lived up to the hype, with Garcia having to overcome a second-round knockdown. “KingRy” ended up stopping Campbell in the seventh round with a body shot.

During an appearance on The Rich Eisen Show, Garcia revealed that he plans to retire from the sport of boxing at the age of 26. With that said, Garcia isn’t opposed to the idea of diving into the world of MMA (h/t MMAFighting.com).

“To answer your question, 26, I still plan to retire. But if I do return back in the ring, I will promise everybody that I will fight people that they say I won’t beat. You know what I’m willing to do? I really haven’t said this out loud but what I plan to do is, say at 26 I’m done retired and boxing is all good. You know what I’ll do? If they say, ‘Okay, you’ve beaten everybody in the ring, right?’ But somebody goes, ‘This ain’t real fighting. Real fighting is legs, choking, submission, all that.’ Guess what I’ll do? I’ll go prove to them that I’m the best fighter all around in the world. I’m talking about hands, I’m talking about wrestling. I will go to MMA to prove a point that God is greatest and I’ll beat whoever in MMA that they say I won’t beat. If it has to be Conor McGregor, I will. And I’m not saying this to get money. I don’t care about money. I’m saying this because that’s just how I feel.”