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Ryan Garcia | Photo by Cris Esqueda/Golden Boy/Getty Images
Ryan Garcia wants to prove this is a new chapter in his life.
One of the most popular fighters in boxing, Garcia had a tumultuous 2024. Ahead of his fight with Devin Haney in April, had a number of incidents, that led some to question the state of his mental health, including badly missing weight for the fight with Haney and then chugging a beer in their final face off. Despite these incidents, Garcia delivered a sensational performance against Haney, pulling off an upset victory, only to later have that result overturned after he test positive for a banned substance.
Garcia received a one year suspension for the infraction and now makes his return on May 2 when he takes on Rolly Romero in the main event of mega boxing card that takes place in Times Square in New York City. On Tuesday, Garcia participated in the first press conference for the “Fatal Fury” event and made it clear that this time around there would be no antics from him.
“I want to be great,” Garcia said. “I’ve always wanted to fight the best fighters in the sport. As far as my problems outside the ring, I’ve always had those problems. I don’t know who else struggles with stuff like that, but that’s just something I was struggling with.
“I want to just show everybody that you can come back from anything. I want to show my dedication to the sport and be a true professional. I admit my wrongs and I don’t want anybody to take my actions of drinking and smoking before the fight and try to think that’s a way to handle yourself as a professional. So I came here to change that. This is my first fight to get respect back and to prove to everybody that it wasn’t a fluke, and I’m ready to do it.”
Garcia’s rival Devin Haney is also fighting on the same card, taking on Jose Ramirez in the co-main event, with both parties openly acknowledging that should should they both win, a rematch of their now No-Contest will take place later this year.
PFL standout Dakota Ditcheva was left spooked after an unexpected encounter with a fan.
Ditcheva’s star has grown no end in recent times. After establishing herself as one to watch with success in the PFL Europe regional expansion in 2023, “Dangerous” proved herself on the global stage.
The 26-year-old striking specialist most recently steamrolled through former UFC title challenger Taila Santos to remain undefeated and capture the 2024 PFL women’s flyweight title.
With that, Ditcheva has significantly grown her fanbase. But one supporter recently showed too much enthusiasm.
During a video uploaded to her YouTube channel late last month, Ditcheva detailed her time in Dubai for the PFL Champions Series event in January. At one point, the British fighter spoke to the camera and described an interaction with a fan at the hotel she was staying at.
The individual, who outlined that he’d been “looking” for her, discovered Ditcheva’s location from a post on her Instagram Story that featured the hotel’s branding.
“On the way back from breakfast, then somebody had seen that I was in this hotel on Instagram,” Ditcheva said. “It’s my fault because I put a photo on of that board, the chocolate board that they brought to my room. I put it on my Instagram Story…I don’t normally share my location until I’ve gone.”
Despite the fan being friendly, Ditcheva admitted the experience had still ‘freaked her out’.
“Stupidly, I did that and I just got approached on the way back from breakfast, which was fine, I love for you guys to come up and say hi and things like that, but when I’m on my own, it freaks me out a little bit,” Ditcheva continued. “He said he’d seen me on Instagram and he’d been DM-ing me and was basically looking for me. He was dead excited to see me, which is really nice and he was a really nice guy, but it does freak me out a little.
“It’s always lovely to meet you guys, but when I’m on my own and I haven’t got my brother or my mum with me, it does just scare me a little bit,” she concluded.
Ditcheva’s incident comes soon after tennis star Emma Raducanu’s harrowing stalking experience. The 2021 US Open champion was said to have been followed across four countries by a man whose behavior was described as being ‘fixated’ on Raducanu.
The individual was handed a restraining order after the British tennis player spotted him in the crowd at a recent championship in Dubai.
When Chris Weidman suffered a gruesome broken leg back in 2021, he had no idea the amount of time, surgeries and rehabilitation that it would take to get back in the cage again.
Over two years and 14 surgeries later, the New York native finally returned to action but he wouldn’t wish what he went through on anybody else. While thankfully it’s not exactly a common occurrence, Weidman witnessed Detroit Lions star defensive end Aidan Hutchinson suffer through almost exact same injury when his leg snapped after colliding with a teammate as he sacked Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback Dak Prescott.
Hutchinson ultimately broke the fibula and tibia, which required him to undergo emergency surgery just hours after the game ended. Initially, the former Michigan Wolverine was expected to be out of action for at least six to eight months but there was some optimism that perhaps he could return even sooner if the Lions made the Super Bowl, which takes place on Feb. 9.
That equals out to four months between the injury and playing football again.
While he can’t predict how quickly Hutchinson will recover, Weidman knows from his own experience — and 14 total surgeries on his leg — that coming back from something so traumatic takes time.
“That’s not happening,” Weidman told MMA Fighting about Hutchinson playing again this season. “I really hope the best for him. I don’t know the full extent of his injuries. I don’t know exactly what happened. I saw the videos but I haven’t seen the x-rays. I don’t know what they did surgery wise.
“I can tell you with me, it was the hardest thing I’ve been through in my life by far. I mean it took me over two years to come back. I fought in April 2021 and I think I fought [August] 2023. Around that same time but it’s not fun.”
Based on reports, Hutchinson’s optimistic timeline to recover was based on a few key factors.
The fracture itself was a clean break with no ligament or nerve damage done. Hutchinson was also able to get the surgery to repair the damage done almost immediately after the injury happened because he was close to Baylor University Medical Center, which is a Level 1 trauma center, where Dr. Alan Jones resides.
Jones is widely regarded as one of the top experts in tibia and fibula injuries and repairs.
Weidman didn’t know the extent of the injuries that Hutchinson suffered so he couldn’t speculate when comparing potential recovery times, especially after he suffered through a compound fracture when his leg broke in a fight.
“Every injury’s definitely different,” Weidman said. “It’s a traumatic injury so everyone is going to be a little bit different. Some people could possibly come back faster. Did it go through the muscle? Did it come out of the skin? Did it hit nerves? Did they fix the fibula as well as fix the tibia?
“I’m sure they put a pin through the tibia if he broke that but a lot of times they don’t put the plates on the fibula. So it just kind of depends on what he ended up doing.”
There’s no telling if Hutchinson would actually attempt to play again this season and that’s obviously also depending on how far the Lions potentially go in the playoffs.
Right now, Detroit sits at 8-1 overall with a great chance to possibly land the No. 1 seed in the NFC, which would give them home field advantage throughout the playoffs.
If the Lions can make it all the way to the Super Bowl, perhaps Hutchinson really could become a medical marvel and play again in the biggest game of the season but Weidman knows the journey there is going to be incredibly difficult.
Much like fighting, football is a violent, contact sport and it’s a lot to ask of the human body to go through a traumatic injury and then bounce back in such quick fashion.
If anything, Weidman hopes that perhaps Hutchinson could get a little extra help in his recovery and then perhaps playing in the Super Bowl might actually be possible.
“It’s very physical,” Weidman said. “You’ve got to explode off of it. I hope he’s able to come back fast. I tried my ass off to come back as fast as possible.
“I would say if he can get on some steroids and get on some performance enhancers and they let him do that, I think that’s smart and I think that should be allowed. That maybe would help being able to come back faster. But doing it all natural, it’s not easy.”
Jon Jones and Adam Catterall | TNT Sports, YouTube
Jon Jones doesn’t want to hear anymore Tom Aspinall questions.
On Wednesday, Jones refused to sit down with TNT Sports reporter Adam Catterall in anticipation of receiving more questions about the UFC interim champion, who is on friendly terms with Catterall. Jones defends his heavyweight title against Stipe Miocic this Saturday at UFC 309 in New York and in the build-up to the event he has frequently been asked whether he plans to meet Aspinall in the future to unify their belts.
Watch a clip of Jones making a quick exit from the interview room below (h/t Championship Rounds):
Jon Jones refused to do an interview with Adam from TNT Sports because of his ties with Tom Aspinall
“Common sense tells me what type of questions I’m just going to get asked.”
— Championship Rounds (@ChampRDS) November 14, 2024
“Hey, I’m not going to do this interview,” Jones said after initially greeting Catterall. “No, because it’s going to be an Aspinall-fest.”
Jones is later seen speaking to Catterall in the lobby, telling him it was “nothing personal” but “I see how close you [and Aspinall] are common sense tells me what type of questions I was going to get asked.”
Catterall tells Jones, “You’re entitled to it. Speak to who you want to.”
Shortly after, Jones re-entered the interview room for an interview with Nick Peet of TNT Sports. Jones is not asked any questions about Aspinall in the video, which can be seen below.
Jones is widely hailed as one of the greatest fighters of all time, primarily based on his work in the UFC light heavyweight division where he went undefeated for a decade (outside of a controversial disqualification loss to Matt Hamill), recorded numerous title defenses, and defeated a long list of legends and future UFC Hall of Famers. In March 2023, Jones defeated Ciryl Gane to capture a vacant heavyweight title.
Miocic was to challenge Jones at UFC 295 the following December, but a pectoral injury forced Jones out of the matchup and out of action for several months. In their absence, Aspinall defeated Sergei Pavlovich to claim an interim title.
With the Jones-Miocic matchup pushed back a year, Aspinall successfully defended his title with a win over Curtis Blaydes this past July. Since winning the interim belt, he has campaigned for a fight with Jones, but Jones has repeatedly said he has no interest in fighting Aspinall.
Aspinall is set to weigh in as the backup for Saturday’s main event and has said he hopes to convince either Jones or Miocic to stick around to face him regardless of who is victorious.
Jones walked out on an interview with the UFC’s UK broadcast partner after recognizing the interviewer from videos with Tom Aspinall
The champ is here! Wait, the champ is gone!
Jon Jones has been generating a ton of headlines over the past few days as he discusses his potential fighting future. He’s suggested fighting Alex Pereira for the BMF belt, relinquishing the heavyweight title so he doesn’t have to fight No. 1 contenders, and taking ‘fun fights’ against Jamahal Hill and Derrick Lewis.
As for interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall, who’s been left twisting in the wind for the past year? He’s the one guy Jones will absolutely positively not fight because he and his fans are ‘assholes.’ If “Bones” decides to expand on that, he’ll only do it with a pro-Jones media outlet because he isn’t going to talk to Aspinall-associated people.
Video from UFC’s UK broadcast partner TNT Sports shows Jon arriving to do an interview and then walking out once he recognized who would be asking the questions.
Jon Jones WALKS OUT of an interview because he doesn’t want Tom Aspinall questions pic.twitter.com/GaqsDtxRWV
— ACD MMA (@acdmma_) November 14, 2024
“Hey, I’m not gonna do this interview,” he said as he left. “You know, because it’s going to be an Aspinall-fest. I’m not going to do it. Come on, let’s go.”
“Hey bro, nothing personal,” Jones said later to Adam Catterall, the interviewer he ditched. “I see how close you guys are. Common sense tells me what type of questions I’m going to get asked.”
“You’re entitled to,” Catterall replied. “Speak to who you want to.”
Catterall co-hosts a show with Aspinall on TNT Sports called Fight Lab. Eventually, Jones would sit down with a more neutral TNT Sports presenter, Nick Peet.
Some fans have suggested Jones’ anti-Aspinall campaign has all been part of a meticulous promotional scheme to build up a fight between the two. We want to assure you that this is not what’s going on. Jones is at a point in his career where he’s done fighting ‘the next guy.’ He wants to fight who he wants to fight. Unfortunately for us fans, his interest gets real low when presented with a stylistic challenge who’s favored to beat him.
No one likes a sandbagger. It’s why we hate Jake Paul. It’s why Canelo Alvarez got piled on for fighting Edgar Berlanga in his last fight. It’s why even a Jones vs. Pereira superfight would be overshadowed by the specter of Aspinall. Because when you’re the best, people want to see you fighting the best. Anything else is rightfully perceived as a waste of time.
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