Boxing

Claressa Shields Blasts 'Drug Cheat' Ryan Garcia In Furious Rant

Women's boxing great Claressa Shields put Ryan Garcia on blast in a recent interview.
Grant Young|
Claressa Shields at the premiere of the movie The Fire Inside at the DGA Theater Complex Los Angeles on April 12, 2024.
Claressa Shields at the premiere of the movie The Fire Inside at the DGA Theater Complex Los Angeles on April 12, 2024. | IMAGO / Future Image

On April 20, 2024, "King" Ryan Garcia produced one of the most shocking results the boxing world had seen that year, when he beat the previously undefeated WBC super lightweight champion Devin Haney by majority decision (115–109, 112–112, 114–110), in a bout that saw Garcia knock Haney down three times.

While Haney's WBC super lightweight title was not up for grabs because Garcia missed weight by several pounds before the fight, this was far from the biggest controversy of the evening. A few days after the fight ended, the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA) revealed that Garcia had tested positive for Ostarine, which is a performance-enhancing drug, the day before and the day of his fight with Haney.

As a result, the fight verdict was ruled a no contest, allowing Haney to get his undefeated record back.

While Garcia has since denied that he knowingly took Ostarine, his reputation within the boxing community has been tarnished as a result. And this was made apparent by an interview that pound-for-pound great Claressa Shields did with Fight Hub TV on March 31.

"Ryan's a drug cheat, and he knows he cheated," Shields said. "And the world keeps saying 'Oh, Devin didn't get out the way of a hook.' He got hit with a steroid hook. I don't know why you guys keep putting that word off. It's like, it wasn't just a hook. It was a steroid hook."

She later added, "Ryan is disrespectful, man. He's a disrespectful kid. And I think everybody is giving him a pass now, he's doing better, he went to rehab or whatever... That stuff is in him, and that's his character. He doesn't get a pass from me."

Shields is clearly not a Garcia fan.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young is a Staff Writer for On SI’s Boxing, New York Mets, Indiana Fever, and Women’s Fastbreak sites. Before joining SI in 2024, he wrote for various boxing and sports verticals such as FanBuzz and NY Fights. Young has a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a master’s degree in creative writing with an emphasis on sports nonfiction from the University of San Francisco, where he played five seasons of Division 1 baseball. He fought Muay Thai professionally in Thailand in 2023, loves a good essay, and is driven crazy trying to handle a pitpull puppy named Aura. Young lives in San Diego and was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.