Ryan Garcia is a car crash; we can’t help but turn our necks and look. The man is like watching NASCAR just waiting for the wrecks. Ryan is a human crash dummy traveling down the road of boxing. It’s like watching to see how much the dummy can take. The real question is how much can the sport of boxing take? Taking advantage of mentally ill people is the vibe I am getting with all of this. Garcia’s mental journey is there for our personal entertainment, which is the way it is portrayed, that is the way it feels. I can just hear the movie Gladiator in the background saying, “Are you not entertained!” The young man is a menace to himself and the sport. How much is enough? Do we just sit back and wait for this guy to spiral into his grave? When does the Ryan Garcia Saga end? How does it end?

I’m thinking of movie quotes as of late, and in The Bronx Tale, Robert De Niro’s character says, “There is nothing worse than wasted talent.” That quote encompasses the life and trials of Ryan Garcia. Here, we have a man where women swoon in his presence, and men are jealous of his looks. He came from nothing, and now he is a millionaire. We have a boxer who has amazing talent. Ryan is a marketer’s dream. However, reality is more like a nightmare.

This is nothing new for boxing fans. We did travel with Mike Tyson down his highway to Hell when it came to his mental acuity. Today, it is a miracle that Mike is still alive. Tyson is now a national treasure, and we want to protect that treasure when we hear about him fighting at his age.  I don’t know if one day we will look at Ryan Garcia as a national treasure or whether we will be watching some documentary of a boxer whose life was cut short. All I know is today the sport of boxing should not approve a license for Ryan to fight anywhere until it is abundantly clear that he has received mental health treatment and is doing much better. Anything short of that is ghoulish voyeurism on our part.

C. Rich

CRich@AmericaSpeaksInk.com

C. Rich

C. Rich is the voice behind America Speaks Ink, home to the America First Movement. As an author, poet, freelance ghostwriter, and blogger, C. Rich brings a “baked-in” perspective shaped by growing up on the streets and beaches of South Florida in the 1970s-1980s and brings a quintessential Generation-X point of view.

Rich’s writing journey began in 2008 with coverage of the Casey Anthony trial and has since evolved into a wide-ranging exploration of politics, culture, and the issues that define our times. Follow C. Rich’s writing odyssey here at America Speaks Ink and on Amazon with a multi-book series on Donald Trump called “Trump Era: The MAGA Files” and many other books and subjects C. Rich is known to cover.

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