Houston landed a marquee professional boxing bout in nearly two years and it featured one of the sport’s biggest stars in Ryan Garcia.
The special catchweight attraction featured Garcia winning in spectacular fashion with an eight-round knockout over junior welterweight contender Oscar Duarte.
On Friday’s weigh-in, Garcia weighed in just at 143 pounds while Duarte arrived in at 142.8 pounds.
𝐏𝐎𝐕: you're ringside for the #GarciaDuarte fight ending and the close up view is just as 𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒛𝒚 as you would expect!! 🤯 pic.twitter.com/PZChOt67w9
— Golden Boy (@GoldenBoyBoxing) December 3, 2023
For Garcia, this marks his first victory since suffering his first career loss to current lightweight champion Gervonta Davis on April 22 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
For Duarte, this bout was biggest of his career by being a part of a main event and suffered his second-career defeat.
Within the sweet science, there is a saying that “styles make fights.” Both fighters display an orthodox stance and are heavy-hitters with a combined record of 40 KOs. However, Garcia proved to be the bigger puncher of the two combatants in his victory over Duarte.
With the nickname “King Ry”, Garcia is now back on the win column after defeating Duarte, who was on an impressive streak of 11 consecutive knockouts.
Garcia also aspires to become a world champion in the sport, which is a goal that he is locked in on.
Nonetheless, Garcia gave the fight fans in H-Town a fight to remember.
Garcia vs. Duarte was the first notable boxing bout in the Toyota Center since native Houstonian and WBC middleweight champion Jermall Charlo defeated Juan Macias Montiel in a 12-round unanimous decision on June 19, 2021.