Ryan Garcia and Conor Benn finally collide in Las Vegas this weekend in a fight that has generated plenty of intrigue because of the contrasting routes both men have taken to get here.

Garcia makes the first defence of his WBC welterweight title after defeating Mario Barrios earlier this yearwhile Benn drops back to 147lbs for the first time since 2022 following spells at higher weights.

The Brit has admitted the weight cut has been ‘brutal’adding another major variable to a fight in which Garcia’s speed and power will be tested against Benn’s pressure and aggression.

With both men carrying significant name value and plenty at stake, the biggest names in boxing have weighed in on what might happen – will it be a first successful defence for the more experienced Garcia, or can the Brit cause an almighty upset on away soil?

Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez

Speaking on the Ariel Helwani ShowMexican icon Canelo backed his former stablemate Garcia, though complimented both men.

“I like Ryan, he is very talented. When he is focussed, he can beat everybody … I know Conor too and I like Conor too, but I think that Ryan is a special fighter.”

Terence Crawford

Recently retired pound-for-pound superstar Crawford – who has been embroiled in a back-and-forth with Garcia – told DAZN that the American’s loss to Rolando Romero will provide a good blueprint for Benn to win.

“I think Conor Benn. I think Rolly showed us all that if you don’t get hit with the left hook and you land your big shots, then you can neutralise Ryan. I think Conor Benn going in with a great game plan can be victorious.”

Shakur Stevenson

A potential rival for both men in the future, four-weight world champion backed Garcia in an interview with FightHypebut does not rule out the Brit ‘shocking the world’.

“I just don’t think that he has got the experience to beat Ryan, I think that is what is going to come out. But, I seen something with Fernando Vargas where he said, ‘which one of them guys quit?’, and I said ‘damn’.

“I never really thought about that but that is like a fighters mentality and Ryan did kind of quit in one of his fights and Conor Benn has never quit. It is an interesting thing and maybe Conor Benn may shock the world and beat Ryan Garcia but me, knowing Ryan, Ryan should beat him.”

Eddie Hearn

After a bitter promotional split, Eddie Hearn told Boxing News that he is backing Garcia to beat his former charge due to the drastic weight cut.

“If he gets his flush on the chin at 147lb against Ryan Garcia, the fight is over. So he’s got to rely on his ability but he likes to engage, he likes to jump in. Ryan is so reactive, he’s a great counter puncher but Ryan can also be hurt, but I don’t think Conor is going to punch hard enough at 147lbs.

Mike Tyson

The sport’s youngest ever heavyweight champion, Mike Tyson, backs Garcia to beat an improving Benn.

“Ryan [wins]. We’ll see [if it ends by knockout]. Conor’s getting better.”

The fight takes place this Saturday at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Jai Opetaia and Noel Mikaelian meet in a cruiserweight clash as co-main event.

No, Garcia, at his peak and, we think, now fully focused like he should have always been in his career, appears to hold all the cards in this one; too many of them for Benn to have any real shot at beating him. For starters, Benn, a natural middleweight or super-middleweight, has hurt himself in making the 147-pound limit (and tomorrow’s official weigh-in could tell us plenty as far as how Saturday’s fight goes). Benn, “emaciated,” as one description has put it, could be severely weakened as well as compromised when he sets foot in the ring, due to having boiled down so dangerously low.

Also, Benn has never met anyone with the blend of speed and power that Garcia possesses. In a nutshell: it looks like a disaster coming for Benn. Maybe Benn – the son, as we know, of one of the most frighteningly brave and gutsy British warriors of them all – can prove us all wrong, and maybe he can fight the fire with fire, and show us that he did the right thing in dropping down to 147. Maybe. But it seems unlikely. Benn has shown his toughness in fights, but Garcia during his career has shown us class, accuracy of fist, and a spiteful element to his game. Might Garcia enjoy this fight, perhaps too much?

Garcia has predicted a KO win inside five.

Benn, having his first, if you want to call it, super-fight, will give it his all. Or at least he’ll try to. But Garcia, far more accustomed to the big-fight, Vegas atmosphere, looks set to sizzle, to dominate; to detonate. To detonate his famed left hook as he scores himself a highlight-reel KO victory.

Benn, 25-1(14) and coming off a good decision win over Regis Prograis, has never been stopped. He will be on Saturday.

Garcia, 25-2(20), the younger man by a year at age 28 and coming off that points win over Mario Barrios, in which he won the gold belt, will indeed shine like a star.

Garcia, with a flash, will land a chilling left hook, flush on the jaw. The bomb, a counter shot, will lay Benn out on the floor, possibly on his face, the fight over with. “King Ry” will celebrate his fifth-round KO prediction.

Benn will regroup and move up to either 160 or 168. Garcia? He may well engage in nothing but super-fights from Saturday on in. Maybe.

The WBO hurried Vargas up the ladder against opponents who barely belong on televised undercards. Walking through Mills, Agustin Quintana, and Jonathan Montrel is paid sparring. It does zero to prepare a kid for an elite technician coming off a one-sided dissection of Teofimo Lopez. The sanctioning body prints numbers next to names to collect sanctioning fees. It cannot gift a raw prospect the ring IQ required to survive an elite southpaw.

Vargas owns 64 professional rounds. He saw the tenth round exactly once. He never shared a ring with an ex-titleholder, let alone an elusive master of range. The stoppage over Mills gave Top Rank nice internet highlights. Vargas pressed forward against a guy willing to trade in a telephone booth. Mills cooperated completely. Shakur treats fighters like that as light cardio work. The champion controls distance with absolute cruelty.

He will dig body shots, angle out of corners, make Vargas reset every single rush. The moment frustration sets in, Vargas will begin lunging wildly. Shakur will step around those telegraphed swings, crack him with counters, and vanish before Vargas even finishes throwing.

Lopez learned that lesson the hard way. Lopez brought wins over Vasiliy Lomachenko, Josh Taylor, and Jamaine Ortiz into that ring, yet he still looked completely lost. If an experienced champion failed to win three rounds against Shakur, a prospect with zero marquee wins will drown inside six minutes.

Defensively, Vargas is an accident waiting to happen. He keeps his chin stuck in the air whenever he unloads combinations. When return fire comes his way, he commits the cardinal sin of pulling straight back with his left hand resting on his hip. Club fighters miss those openings. Shakur will pick him apart like an unpaid sparring partner.

Power means nothing when a fighter punches thin air. Shakur controls real estate so well that Vargas will spend 36 minutes swinging at ghosts while eating crisp left hands.

The Vargas family already paid this price once before. Fernando Vargas held a real belt at 154 pounds when promoters fed him to Felix Trinidad back in 2000. Fernando possessed true grit, yet he absorbed five knockdowns and sustained trauma that altered his entire career. Fernando took a beating from a puncher. Emiliano is being lined up to get systematically humiliated by a defensive wizard who will make him look amateurish.

Top Rank skipped entire tiers of matchmaking. If Bob Arum wants to find out what he truly has, he needs to stick Vargas in with Lindolfo Delgado. A solid technician like Delgado tests a prospect, exposes defensive holes over ten grueling rounds, and shows whether a kid possesses actual championship grit.

Getting outboxed by Delgado ends the hype train early, but feeding Vargas to Shakur ruins the fighter entirely.

Cashing out a young ticket seller for one mandatory payday is downright reckless. Vargas draws eyes. Top Rank has a marketable commodity they can build into a legitimate draw over three years. Throwing him into a mismatch strips the polish off the product overnight.

Weight drain makes matters worse. Vargas is a huge light welterweight who eventually grows into a full welterweight. Squeezing his body down to 140 pounds to chase an elusive target drains his legs before the opening bell rings.

Shakur will happily take the payday and collect an easy defense. The real blame falls on the handlers who confuse a manufactured ranking with genuine fighting ability. Vargas has plenty of raw talent. Serving him up to Shakur right now sacrifices a good kid just to give a champion an effortless night of work.