Trainer Abel Sanchez sits down for a chat with Fight Hub TV to discuss this weekend’s WBC welterweight title fight between Ryan Garcia and Conor Benn. Here, Sanchez suggests he has serious concerns with Benn’s weight cut heading into this fight, believing he should’ve whittled down earlier in training camp, and therefore thinks he could be weak inside the ring. If so, Sanchez says Garcia will ultimately manhandle Benn.
Sanchez on the Garcia vs Benn fight
“The thing that I find hard to understand is how can Conor make 147? That’s the
first question. And two, he’s probably going to make it because that’s what they contracted at, but is that fair to Ryan and is that fair to Conor? Is it fair to Ryan because now he’s going to be fighting a depleted guy and nobody’s going to give him the credit, or is it fair to Conor to go into a fight against a fighter like Ryan who’s coming up so at 147 he’s going to be full? Is it fair to Conor to do that to himself? So that was my concern from the beginning.
“I don’t know why but the scale is worse than the fighter they’re going to fight, for a fighter. That’s the worst opponent that they could ever have.”
On how he sees the fight going
“Well, let’s just think there’s no weight issue. I think that Conor can box him a little bit now. He’s not Ryan Garcia, Ryan is better, and maybe makes it interesting for four to five rounds but I think Ryan’s power will take over. I think Ryan’s power will hurt him and drop him but Conor will make a fight of it if the weight is not an issue. If the weight is an issue, after five or six rounds you’ll see an Itauma fight where Itauma just got exhausted, Conor will get exhauseted.
“Ryan is a smaller guy coming up so he’s going to be full at 147, he’s not going to be having to kill himself. So, his power and his pressure and just like he did with Barrios, he’s going to manhandle Conor if he has no strength.”
