Hearn wants Campbell-Ryan Garcia WBC title fight

The already complicated, but entertaining, Lightweight World Championship picture got a little more so on Wednesday afternoon. With the WBC now scrambling to find an opponent to fight former titleholder Luke Campbell for his upcoming “Interim” title bout, a familiar American name surfaced.

And, Matchroom Boxing promoter, Eddie Hearn, suggested on social media that it would be an easy fight to make happen.

Hearn put on Twitter that he would like to be part of his figheter, Campbell taking on unbeaten California Lightweight Ryan Garcia, promoted by Oscar De La Hoya/Golden Boy Promotions in what would be Garcia’s biggest fight of his career to date:

With Fortuna pulling out of the @luke11campbell fight, we have just been notified that the WBC have ordered Campbell v @KingRyanG Great fight! @dazn_usa @goldenboy ?? ?? pic.twitter.com/9qxXzt3QrI

— Eddie Hearn (@EddieHearn) July 1, 2020

The WBC has ordered the Campbell-Garcia matchup after Javier Fortuna declined to fight the Brit and will instead fight Jorge Linares at the end of August in California for a DAZN Streaming main event.

Obviously, the mere suggestion of Garcia’s name being attached to a possible battle now with Campbell, 20-3, 16 KOs, is intriguing. But, as is often the case with Hearn and Matchroom, what he is proposing and what can actually happen, are often two different things.

First, Garcia is still in a dispute with Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions, as he refused all of the opponents on their list for a potential return to the ring this Saturday night. That would have been the 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 earlier this week that Vergil Ortiz will be their first fight back on July 25th also in Indio, California.

It’s unclear if De La Hoya and Garcia have smoothed things over, again, after they had to do so last Fall. That’s when Garcia was upset 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.

Back to Campbell, the popular English fighter suffered the loss of the WBC belt last August 31st, when Unified lightweight champion, Vasiliy Lomachenko dominated him in a 12-round decision win.

Lomachenko has since been designated as the “Franchise champion” by the WBC. That’s a designation that they previously also gave to Canelo Alvarez for their Middleweight championship.

And, it essentially means that they will not strip the fighter of the title, even if he’s not regularly defending it, until he loses a fight in that division’s weight class.

As we wrote earlier Wednesday, Lomachenko is slated to defend his WBC “Franchise,” as well as, WBO and WBA belts against IBF champ, Teofimo Lopez in September.

As for Campbell, he weighed in immediately on Twitter that he would love the chance to fight Garcia:

Let’s go ?? #Coolhand @EddieHearn @McGuigans_Gym https://t.co/2zZDpvapi9

— Luke Campbell MBE (@luke11campbell) July 1, 2020

Then, Garcia, who is very active on social media, made it clear that he would be interested, too:

I’m finally getting to fight a southpaw my favorite fighters to fight! Bring it on luke Campbell

— Ryan Garcia (@KingRyanG) July 1, 2020

But, an equally important question is: would a Campbell-Garcia showdown, if it is going to happen, be held without fans? That would obviously hinder their purse money, if they did.

Or, would Matchroom, Golden Boy and the fighters want to wait until much later in the Fall, when there’s at least a possibility of some fans being socially distanced in attendance?

Again, lots of questions that stand in the way of what Hearn, specifically, wants to happen.