LAS VEGAS — All the talking is done. Ryan Garcia and Conor Benn both made weight Friday morning at Meta Apex, and by Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena, the only thing left to settle is who walks out with the WBC welterweight title.
Getting there took a full week of noise, and Thursday's final press conference at T-Mobile Arena delivered as much of it as any single moment all week. Fans were lined up outside the arena well before doors opened, with a separate media check-in line running alongside them and a real buzz building in the plaza. Once everyone settled into the air-conditioned arena, Dana White opened the floor, and the first question went straight at Garcia: why he skipped Tuesday's scheduled face-off. He gave the same answer he'd given all week. He has a routine during fight week, and he didn't feel it was necessary to be there.
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Ryan Garcia responds to a question during Thursday's press conference at T-Mobile Arena.
Asked next whether he thought he was getting under Benn's skin, Garcia set the microphone down, reached into his bag, and cracked a hard-boiled egg on the table. Whether it was intentional or not, the moment was hard to separate from history. Chris Eubank Jr. slapped Benn in the face with an egg at a press conference last year, mocking the contaminated-egg explanation floated for one of Benn's failed drug tests. That stunt cost Eubank Jr. a six-figure fine. Garcia didn't wait to finish chewing before he started answering. He mumbled through a mouthful of egg with the mic still sitting on the table, making the point that he didn't care what Benn thought without bothering to be understood, then picked the mic back up and repeated it clearly enough for everyone to hear.
Benn, for his part, brushed off questions about his own weight-making and insisted he was focused only on himself. Asked how he planned to deal with Garcia's left hook, he said he wasn't concerned, and that he brings tenacity, ferocity, spite and experience built from fighting in front of massive crowds before. When a reporter brought up Benn having questioned whether Garcia is “a real Mexican,” Garcia didn't let it go. He made clear Benn had no standing to question his heritage, and that fighting during Mexican Independence Day weekend only added to what's on the line for him Saturday. He said Saturday night would settle that the same way it settles everything else.
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Conor Benn speaks to the crowd with his father Nigel Benn at his side at Thursday's press conference inside the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas
There were lighter beats too. Asked about signing with Zuffa Boxing, Benn's team credited the move with making the fight possible at all. Dana White called Benn the most professional fighter he's ever worked with, and Garcia cut in mid-answer, mockingly calling him “a good boy” before Dana could finish the thought.
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Ryan Garcia and Conor share some back and forth at Thursday's final press conference inside of the the T-Mobile Arena as Zuffa President Dana White looks on.
Then the room went quiet in a different way. Garcia's tone shifted, his voice dropped, and he turned to point directly at Benn and Benn's father, warning that if Benn doesn't walk out of that ring okay Saturday, it's on his dad. Benn and his father just looked forward and nodded. It was the one moment all week that didn't feel like theater.
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Ryan Garcia turns directly to Conor Benn and his father as things got heated between the two welterweight fighters at Thursday's press conference
The presser closed on a surprise. Teofimo Lopez had been sitting in disguise a few feet away for most of the session before revealing himself after Garcia named him as someone he still has to beat. Benn's reaction summed up the room: “I like that.”
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WBA welterweight champion Teofimo Lopez reveals himself to be the media member in disguise that asked both fighters a question during Thursday afternoon's press conference.
Friday morning brought a much quieter scene. The line outside Meta Apex started forming before 8 a.m., and by 9, media had settled into the weigh-in section with the scale up on stage. Benn was up first, called out from the side stage, and stepped on the scale to a visible smile, maybe even relief, as he hit 146 pounds.
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Conor Benn officially makes weight at 146 lbs. at Friday morning's weigh-in from the Meta Apex in Las Vegas
Garcia hadn't arrived yet, so the rest of the card weighed in without him. He walked in midway through, went straight to the scale, and made 145.5 with WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman looking on, just as Sulaiman had for Benn. Both fighters comfortably inside the 147-pound limit, no drama, no excuses left to make.
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Ryan Garcia weighs in at 145.5 lbs. and officially makes weight for his WBC welterweight title defense against Conor Benn at the T-Mobile Arena on Saturday night in Las Vegas.
By 5 p.m., the crowd at T-Mobile Arena's plaza told its own story. Paramount Plaza was packed, and the energy carried the kind of charge that's usually reserved for fight night itself. Garcia walked out draped in an American flag. When he and Benn finally stood face to face, there wasn't much left to add. Four days, a skipped face-off, an egg, a warning about a father's safety, and it all came down to two men standing a few inches apart with nothing left to say. Saturday will finish the conversation.