De La Hoya: Ryan Garcia Needs 2025 Off After Rolly Loss

Oscar De La Hoya says he’d like for Ryan Garcia to take the remainder of 2025 off after his loss to Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero on May 2nd. Golden Boy promoter De La Hoya wants Garcia (24-2, 20 KOs) to heal his injuries and get “his mind straight” before coming back in 2026.

Inactivity: A Risk for Garcia?

The problem with Garcia, 26, taking the remainder of the year off is that he’d already been out of action for 13 months when he fought Rolly. He’d been suspended for a year by the New York State Athletic Commission for testing positive for a PED following his win over Devin Haney on April 20, 2024.

Taking another year off wouldn’t be a good move for a young fighter like Garcia. He will have missed too much action for him to recapture the form that he had earlier. However, if Ryan’s focus is just on money fights, it won’t hurt him too badly to sit until 2026.

The way Garcia performed against Romero, his career is going downhill, regardless of whether he stays active. Ryan isn’t going to beat the top fighters at 140 or 147 looking the way he did againt Romero. If Garcia does choose to fight again this year, he needs to take a confidence builder next.

“I’d like for Ryan [Garcia] to take the whole year off, getting his mind straight, getting it comfortable where it feels good,” said Oscar De La Hoya to Sean Zittel about wanting Ryan Garcia to take the remainder of 2025 off after his loss to Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero on May 2nd.

Overwriting Defeat: Garcia’s Need

Staying out of the ring for another year would be bad for Garcia. He’d have a lot of time to stew on his defeat to Rolly, playing it over in his mind daily, and being tortured by the memories. It would be better for Garcia to come back and get a victory so that he can overwrite the defeat image in his mind. When a fighter fails, the worst thing they can do is sit inactive for an extended period.

“There’s nothing lost for him. He has injuries, and he has to get those fixed,” said De La Hoya. “But I think more importantly, he has to get his life in order because I’m pretty sure, because I’ve lived it, that everyone is tugging him left and right, including family.”

There is something “lost” for Garcia by sitting inactive for the remainder of this year. His confidence will remain low, and he may never regain what he lost from all the inactivity. If he’d already had a long career like Terence Crawford, it wouldn’t hurt him to be inactive.

“There’s nothing wrong with that, but you’ve got to be able to take a deep breath, step back, and reassess your life and put it all in order again. This is my opinion. I hope he takes that year off,” said De La Hoya about Garcia.

De La Hoya’s Past vs. Garcia’s

It’s easy for De La Hoya to say that Garcia take the rest of the year off. It’s not his career. We know that Oscar didn’t do that when he was Ryan’s age. When he was 26, he fought these three fighters in 1999:

Ike Quartey
Oba Carr
Felix Trinidad

“I mean, I would hate for him to be the seventh fighter to be popped,” said De La Hoya when asked if he’d like for Ryan Garcia to join with trainer Eddy Reynoso.