OSCAR DE LA HOYA predicted Thursday (April 18) that a late surge in ticket sales to the Devin Haney-Ryan Garcia card will result in a sell-out Saturday night at the Barclays Centre in Brooklyn.
Fans and media have speculated since tickets went on sale that prices were too high, especially since neither Haney nor Garcia has headlined a show at this venue. They highlighted huge sections of available tickets from seat maps on social media and noted that this DAZN Pay-Per-View main event wasn’t quite the can’t-miss mega fight that everyone involved suggested.
An aggravated Garcia even publicly complained that De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions brought this fight to the home arena of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets because the Victorville, California native believes it belongs in Las Vegas or the Los Angeles area.
Venue availability for Saturday night was among the reasons Golden Boy brought these 25-year-old rivals to Brooklyn. According to De La Hoya, that decision won’t prove to have been a mistake by the time Haney (31-0, 15 KOs) and Garcia (24-1, 20 KOs) enter the ring for their 12-round fight for Haney’s WBC super lightweight title.
“And contrary to what everybody’s saying, the fight is selling and it’s hot,” De La Hoya said during their final press conference. “It’s a hot ticket, so everything you’re hearing out there with the social media and posts and this and that, no it’s – we have what, like 1,500 tickets left. The walk-up will make it a sell-out, so you wanna get your tickets fast.”
Promoters habitually exaggerate estimates of ticket sales, but Eddie Hearn, Haney’s promotional representative, seconded his rival’s prediction of a sell-out. Hearn indicated after the press conference that tickets to Haney-Garcia would’ve already sold out if consumers might’ve had more confidence until recently in the unhinged Garcia actually making it to fight night.
“I mean, listen, as a promoter, I don’t hate it,” Hearn said when asked about Garcia’s antics.
“The only thing I hate maybe is that people maybe believed that he wouldn’t make the fight. And that’s why now you’re seeing it being a late sell-out rather than an early sell-out.”
Haney established himself as a draw in the United States by helping attract an announced crowd in excess of 16,000 to Chase Centre in San Francisco for his last fight, a 12-round shutout of former WBA/WBC 140-pound title holder Regis Prograis on December 9. Two fights ago, Garcia and another of his rivals, Gervonta Davis, attracted a capacity crowd of 20,842 to T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and generated $22.8 million in ticket revenue for a fight Davis won by seventh-round knockout.
