Ryan Garcia set to face Emmanuel Tagoe this Saturday
Ryan Garcia returns this Saturday night after a nightmarish 2021 to face Emmanuel Tagoe in a 139-lb catchweight fight at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
For Ryan’s first fight after 15 months out of the ring, a catchweight at 139Ib was important because he hasn’t been fighting.
Tagoe won’t be a walk in the park for the 23-year-old Ryan by any means, and if he’s not careful, he’s going to lose to the tough fighter from Ghana.
Tagoe has won his last 32 fights, and he’s going to be looking to pick up his 33rd consecutive win on Saturday.
Tagoe, has never held a belt from one of the four major governing bodies, but he has held the IBO belt, amongst others.
After a defeat to Lante Addy in 2004 on his debut, he has won 32 fights since and began collecting titles way back in 2007, when he beat Abdul Maliik Jabir for the Ghanaian featherweight title.
In 2010, he won the WBO Africa super-featherweight title against South Africa’s Thomson Makwana, but won his first global belt in 2011. In June that year, he beat Oscar Bravo, a unanimous decision against the Chilean gifting him the vacant IBF Inter-Continental super-featherweight title.
In November 2012 he added the WBA international lightweight title to his list of achievements against George Ashie. In 2017, he took the IBO lightweight title from Mzonke Magali with a TKO, and in 2018 there was the WBO Africa lightweight belt won against Paulus Moses.
And in 2019 he claimed the IBF international and WBO global lightweight titles against Russian Vyacheslav Gusev ashat which would be his penultimate fight in his hometown before he moved to the US.
Despite the titles, the November 2020 fight against Mason Menard at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, in Hollywood, California, showed that he could perform in one of the most glamorous boxing destinations, and could withstand the pressure of facing one of the most experienced opponents so far.
While it did not earn him a title, it demonstrated that he was a worthy fighter who retained his abilities into his early thirties – and perhaps made him the perfect opponent for a returning Garcia.
The main card is scheduled to begin Saturday, April 9 at 9:00 p.m. ET / 2:00 a.m. GMT with the main event ringwalks scheduled for 11:00 p.m. ET / 4:00 a.m. GMT.
