After WBO mandate Garcia now has choices of opponent

It looks like unbeaten California Lightweight Ryan Garcia has his choice for his next fight and a title shot will await him no matter which opponent. But, the bigger question remains: has he smooth things over with his promoter, Oscar De La Hoya?

First, the news came Monday that for the second time in less than a week, Garcia is in line to set up a possible title fight at 135 lb. and this time for the WBO,

The WBO on Monday ordered a lightweight title eliminator between @KingRyanG and Emmanuel Tagoe, sending a letter outlining it to their promoters, @GoldenBoyBoxing and @loudibella

— Dan Rafael (@DanRafael1) July 6, 2020

The opponent proposed by the WBO, Emmanuel Tagoe, is from Ghana and is little known in the United States. He does have a 31 – 1 record and has been the IBF International Lightweight Champion for the last year. He was last in action a year ago in July. The 31 year old Tagoe has won 31 fights in a row, mostly in his native Ghana, since losing his first ever professional bout in June of 2004.

Meanwhile, as we wrote last week Garcia, 20-0, 17 KOs, has also been ordered by the WBC to fight for the number one Contender spot with former #1 contender, Luke Campbell of England.

It was also widely reported this past weekend that Garcia was to have met with De La Hoya about their once again strained relationship and whether or not either of these fights could be a reality?

Garcia refused all of the opponents on the Golden Boy list for a potential return to the ring last Saturday night. That would have been De La Hoya’s promotion and DAZN’s first fight card since the Covid 19 pandemic shut down boxing in March.

De La Hoya made clear a couple of weeks ago that Garcia, 20-0, 17 KOs, had refused and that they were moving on without him to start staging fights for later  in July. Golden Boy announced in conjunction with DAZN last week that Vergil Ortiz will be their first fight back on July 25th in Indio, California.

The first Garcia/De La Hoya public “dust up” was with Golden Boy trying to force him to fight a replacement fighter he did not want fight on just a couple of days notice for a September DAZN fight card.

The bottom line is that Vasilly Lomachenko is the biggest name in the Lightweight division and has three of the four titles, including the WBA, WBO and  the WBC’s “franchise” designation for the 135lb title. So, whether Garcia chooses the Campbell-WBC route or this latest proposed one for the WBO and Tageo, “Loma” would likely be waiting.

Lomachenko will apparently be fighting IBF champion Teofimo Lopez later this fall and probably in Las Vegas.

And, one final time, who knows if Garcia and De La Hoya can get on the same page, as well?