Ryan Garcia Says Floyd Mayweather Agreed to Fight Him for the WBC Title. Mayweather Has Not Said a Word.
Ryan Garcia posted on X on Wednesday that he and Floyd Mayweather have agreed to fight at 147 pounds for Garcia’s WBC welterweight title. He attached a screenshot of what looked like a FaceTime call with Mayweather and sold the matchup as 50-0 against the reigning champion.
Those two details are real. Garcia has held the WBC welterweight belt since February 21, when he beat Mario Barrios by unanimous decision at T-Mobile Arena on scores of 119-108, 120-107 and 118-109. Mayweather is 50-0 and 49 years old.
Everything past that is Garcia talking to himself in public.
Nobody Else Has Confirmed Anything
Mayweather has said nothing. Neither has his team, nor Mayweather Promotions, nor CSI Sports, the promoter he signed an exclusive deal with in February when he announced he was coming out of retirement. He gave an interview reported on Tuesday in which he laid out his next two fights, a December exhibition against Mike Tyson and a Manny Pacquiao rematch he placed somewhere in 2027. Garcia never came up.
Uncrowned reported that sources close to the situation said no serious negotiations have taken place.
There is no date, no venue, no broadcaster, no purse figure and no WBC sanction. The organization has not published a word about it, and Mayweather does not appear anywhere in its welterweight top 10.
What does exist is a conditional quote from WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman, given a day before Garcia’s post. Sulaiman told Hard Rock Bet that if Mayweather passes all the examinations and gets licensed in the state where the fight would happen, the WBC “will certainly support” him. That is a sanctioning body leaving a door open. Nobody has walked through it.
Read the Headlines Carefully
Several outlets ran this as announced. Bleacher Report put that word in its headline, then the story underneath explained that the only person confirming the fight is Ryan Garcia. A cluster of content farms went further and stamped the word confirmed on it in capital letters.
The honest version is shorter. A world champion said a 49-year-old who has not fought professionally since 2017 agreed to fight him, produced a screenshot as evidence, and the 49-year-old has not responded.
Why Garcia Wants It, and Why He Should Not
Garcia is 28 and 26-2 with 21 knockouts, and he stopped Conor Benn in two rounds in September in his first title defense. When talks were first floated in early October he said he would not take an exhibition and wanted Mayweather’s unbeaten record on the line. “Okay Floyd let’s see how much you love that ‘0,’” he wrote.
That tells you exactly what he is shopping for. He wants the number, not the fight.
Boxing has noticed. Amir Khan said the risk makes no sense for Garcia and read the whole thing as publicity. “I think Mayweather is jumping on the bandwagon for a bit of PR because Ryan Garcia is a superstar in boxing now,” Khan said. Keith Thurman said 12 rounds at 50 does not favor Mayweather and compared the matchup to Larry Holmes beating an aging Muhammad Ali. Tim Bradley said he hoped it was not true. Adrien Broner, asked to his face, picked Mayweather.
There is also a conflict already on the calendar. Mike Coppinger reported on October 15 that a unification fight between Garcia and WBA welterweight champion Teofimo Lopez was being targeted for the first quarter of 2027. That is the fight worth building, and it cannot share a window with this one.
Garcia has a real belt and a real opponent waiting on the other side of it. Chasing a 49-year-old’s record instead is the least interesting thing he could do with either.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
