LUKE CAMPBELL has been warned he is in for a rude awakening if he underestimates pretty-boy Ryan Garcia.
Hull’s 33-year-old Olympic 2012 gold medallist faces the Mexican-American KO sensation in a bout in Dallas that will propel the winner into a 2021 WBC lightweight world-title bid.
Garcia, 22, is the sport’s newest golden boy, promoted by former six-weight world champ Oscar De La Hoya, training alongside pound-for-pound king Canelo Alvarez and followed by 7.7million fans on Instagram.
Campbell has watched hours of Garcia on video.
But if the brave Brit reckons it is all style over substance, then Golden Boy promoter and ring legend Bernard Hopkins reckons his baby-face could get battered.
Hopkins, 55, told SunSport: “Anyone who knows the boxing business knows speed is power.
“You don’t really see power but you can hear it and definitely feel it, you know it will knock someone down or out.
“When people look at Ryan they see a skinny, nice-looking guy and they think ‘he cannot punch hard’.
“But what defines a puncher? Ryan’s timing and speed makes him a puncher because he hits opponents with shots they cannot see.
“The punches you do not see are the ones that knock you out.”
Campbell lost his two previous world title challenges on points, against future hall-of-fame fighters Jorge Linares and Vasiliy Lomachenko.
Garcia has reached 20-0 with 17 knockouts without breaking sweat.
And Hopkins, the two-weight legend who retired just 28 days short of his 52nd birthday, knows the Englishman could yet take the young buck to school.
He said: “Campbell’s experience and willingness to take this fight marks him out as a real champion.
“I am excited by Campbell’s confidence, he is not coming here like somebody has done him a favour.
“He is serious. Ryan is going to have his hands full and he is going to have to figure it out in the heat of battle.
“Ryan knows how serious this fight is and this is not Campbell’s first rodeo, so he is going in there with experience and a lot of confidence.”
Father-of-three Campbell flew out to Texas just days before Christmas and could have filled the ten-hour flight watching clips of his rival looking a million dollars on the training pads or posing.
But the no-nonsense Yorkshireman told the California kid it is all punches, not posts.
Campbell said: “He’s got a huge profile on social media.
“When you have that amount of followers, you have to keep them interested with stuff, videos. For me, I prefer to just live my life.
“It all looks good on video but there are plenty of kids out there who can hit the pads quickly but not look good in the ring.
“You can throw 1,000 uppercuts in five seconds on the pads but it’s not real. There’s no one in front of you trying to take your head off.”
- Watch Campbell v Garcia on Saturday night on DAZN from 8pm.
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