Tony Harrison Swings At Luis Arias At Press Conference Ahead of Win Vs. Sergio Garcia
Luis Arias made a surprise appearance at the press conference ahead of Tony Harrison’s bout at Showtime’s tripleheader, with some insulting remarks directed towards the latter.
Harrison (28-3-1, 21 KOs) was having a general chatter regarding his scheduled fight with the Spaniard Sergio Garcia (33-1, 14 KOs) when Arias yelled from the audience about his knockout defeat to Jermell Charlo in their rematch.
Arias didn’t stop here as he went on to accuse Harrison of ducking him to which Harrison mocked the Wisconsin native by mentioning his upset defeat to Vaughn Alexander on December 5 at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Soon things went out of control as Arias threw a small rubber duck at Harrison provoking the former WBC super welterweight champion to lunge at Arias. Harrison then swung a left hand towards Arias, but the security personnel made sure that it didn’t reach Arias’ jaw.
Arias was then escorted out of the room as Harrison again took his seat and explained what led to his actions.
“He lucky I missed,” Harrison said. “He f——’ lucky I missed…If you ain’t gonna give me the respect, I’ll take it. But we can keep going.”
Miguel Flores, the moderator of the press conference, then tried to soothe the situation and shifted Harrison’s focus back to his 10-round fight against Garcia on Saturday night, which Harrison went on to win by unanimous decision.
“I think this motherf—– that I know nothing about is probably one of the toughest opponents that I probably coulda chosen,” Harrison said.
“You know what I mean? Coming off a draw [with Bryant Perrella] and I think choosing a guy like that, who just fought the guy [Sebastian Fundora] that everybody damn near was afraid of, to fight, and [Garcia] took that man to the f—–’ wire, I’m like, ‘That’s a good gauge.”
Unlike Arias, Garcia was not bad-mouthed as the Spaniard went over to Harrison, fist-bumped him, and expressed respect on the stage. Harrison also paid his respect to Garcia, citing that he is a class act.
“My last thing with this – it’s so f—— hard to fight guys like him, man,” Harrison said. “Like, humble and all, man. Like, guys like that, they get my respect all the way through. Like, you know, class act.”
The Spaniard was the favorite going into this fight with the most oddsmakers listing him as a 2-1 favorite over Harrison.
The win marked Harrison’s first win in four years and has been upgraded to unified champion Jermell Charlo’s mandatory challenger, who he’s fought twice and is 1-1. Charlo is lined up for a rematch with Brian Castano on May 14.
Before Saturday night, Harrison hadn’t won since an upset unanimous decision victory over Charlo in December 2018.