Ryan Garcia breaks hand, Joseph Diaz Jr fight postponed

Ryan Garcia’s tumultuous 2021 will end without a second ring appearance. “Kingry” announced today that he’s suffered a “significant hand injury” that will postpone his November clash with Joseph Diaz Jr. “for a couple of months.”

Garcia (21-0, 18 KO) scored the biggest win of his career this past January by getting off the canvas to violently stop Luka Campbell for the WBC interim title. This left both him and Javier Fortuna as Devin Haney’s mandatory challengers, so the WBC elected to sort the whole thing out by pitting Garcia and Fortuna against one another.

Garcia wound up withdrawing for mental health reasons, and Diaz (32-1-1, 15 KO), who had lost his super featherweight belt on the scales before a draw with Shavkatdzhon Rakhimov, jumped on the opportunity. “JoJo” beat Fortuna in a competitive, entertaining bout to set up the Garcia fight, which we’ll now have to wait until 2022 for.