Failing Your Way Upwards: King Ry and the WBC

With divine grace and profound wisdom, the World Boxing Council have rescinded their ban on pugilistic pop star, Ryan Garcia. This paves the way for a potential shot at Mario Barrios’ tenuously held welterweight trinket in the first quarter of 2026.

Having nothing to do with “King Ry’s” marketability as a boisterous and suave Mexican-American, Garcia forced the WBC’s hand the old-school way—by losing his last fight, using performance enhancing drugs, and beating no one of note at 147 pounds.

In fact, Garcia hasn’t overcome an active top-10 opponent (using both Transnational and The Ring as metrics) since Javier Fortuna back in July of 2022. That was a division below.

Even so, it’s of little consequence to the famously impartial Board of the WBC. For in spite the Victorville native’s consistent hiccups both inside and outside of the once-hollowed squared circle, they insist that he is a reformed man.

Mauricio Sulaiman, head of the Mexican-based organization, which is neither here nor there, took to X to proclaim that: “The WBC has been very close to Ryan, his family, management, promoter and we trust a new life inside and outside the ring will begin. We welcome you with open arms and trust you will be an ambassador for the new generation.”

Well, Hallelujah!

The boxing world is healthier with young, talented, and charismatic fighters populating its ranks. More importantly, Garcia is better off himself if he has undergone, and continues to undergo, a Fitzsimmons-like tempering and re-tempering of his articles of faith.

Boxing is the Great Redeemer, after all. Pilgrim through this barren land and you shall have hope.

That’s part of the problem, however. It isn’t the shot at redemption, necessarily. It’s that whatever tilling Garcia has done to this or that part of his internal constitution should have little bearing on whether he qualifies as a challenger for an external prize.

Talking about “merit” in boxing can feel like pissing in the Wichita wind, but you can never escape ‘What have you done to earn it?’ For better or worse, we expect qualifiers to qualify. And as frankly as frankly gets, Garcia hasn’t done anything to warrant that rubberstamp.

But if you haven’t parsed out what this is really about, let me delay no longer. It’s the Almighty, inflation-ridden and taxed-to-death, Dollar.

You see, if there is one paradigm by which the sanctioning bodies, promoters, and managers filter prospective matchups through, and which makes many of them howl at the moon like the predatory wolves they can sometimes be, it’s money. So whatever one may say about Garcia’s inadequacies, he brings in revenue.

Tie him to Barrios, who is likewise Mexican-American and fiercely proud of his roots. Add in his penchant for making fights somewhat exciting and his reasonably recognizable name, due to his matches with Pacquiao, Thurman, and Davis. Find a suitable venue in the American Southwest. And now you have a formula that sells.

In business, money is merit. Even more so in a sport that has waned in popularity and takes Antikythera mechanistic levels of explanation for the layman to understand.

So, in the monetary whirlwind that is today’s game. With shameful cash-grabs galore. What’s one more?