Ryan Garcia isn’t alone criticizing referee Harvey Dock after making some questionable decisions in the fight with Devin Haney this past Saturday night.
UFC welterweight Matt Brown unloaded on the referee for his actions - especially in the seventh round. Garcia became the first person to drop Haney after he blasted the previously undefeated fighter with a brutal left hook that dropped him to the ground. Haney struggled getting back to his feet, which led to Garcia going for the kill.
Haney was holding on for dear life but Dock ultimately ended up deducting a point from Garcia to penalize the fighter for punching after his command for a break. Garcia took aim at Dock after the fight, saying the referee was “tripping” and that he “stole” a potential knockout win away from him.
Brown definitely agreed with Garcia’s assessment, especially in that seventh round following the knockdown.
“I didn’t think [Devin Haney] was getting up from it,” Brown said on The Fighter vs. The Writer. “That was the one where he got up and tackled him and the one knockdown that the referee didn’t call.
“Ryan clocked him, Devin falls onto Ryan, Ryan’s holding him up, Ryan lets him go and the f****** referee, you couldn’t be more clearly for Devin Haney than that referee in that round.”
Brown conceded that referees have an impossibly tough job and Haney and Garcia didn’t make it any easier on him by repeatedly holding onto each other dozens of times throughout the fight.
That said, Brown believes Dock deserves the criticism he’s receiving after that seventh round where he made mistake after mistake following the knockdown from Garcia.
“That was a tough fight for him all the way around, but in that seventh round, how he f****** that up so bad,” Brown said. “There’s a point where we understand how hard of a job they’ve got and we’ve got to give them some leeway. But there’s a point where it’s like that’s some bulls***. You should be fined for that one motherf*****.”
In the end, Garcia received the only point deduction in the fight for the punch after the break but Brown says the referee should have taken better control of the situation even if he was probably in for a long night during a grudge match between two boxers who clearly didn’t like each other.
“Most of the fight, I think he could have been a little bit harder about holding onto each other,” Brown said. “He never docked a point, particularly for Devin Haney holding but I think Ryan was holding a lot, too, and trying to make it look like Devin was holding.
“It was a tough job for the referee. That was an ugly fight. That was a tough fight for him all the way around.”
As far as the result goes, Garcia secured a majority decision win based primarily around three knockdowns in rounds 7, 10 and 11. Outside of that, Garcia largely got outboxed by Haney but Brown expects that was exactly the game plan the 25-year-old fighter from California had in mind the entire time.
“You [saw] it play out in the fight,” Brown said. “[Garcia] was banking on the big shot. He wasn’t outboxing Devin Haney by any stretch. Devin Haney was outboxing him. That’s how the fight became almost even. But he knew that his power was what’s going to win him that fight. The motherf***** was right!.
“What sucks about it, too, Ryan is a good boxer. He actually has good boxing, but it’s like he didn’t even try on Saturday against Devin. He didn’t even try to box him. I think he knew Devin was the better boxer, and he knew that wasn’t a good game plan. But some of the silly things like turning his back on the shoulder roll and the constant holding, punching off the break, so much of that. It’s such an ugly fight. It was like the greatest ugly fight I’ve ever seen in my life.”
It may not have been pretty but Garcia still managed to score three knockdowns to help him secure the win over Haney. The victory now stands as the biggest accomplishment in Garcia’s career, and Brown lauds him for getting the job done just as promised.
“I think that’s what ultimately got Ryan Garcia the win — he pulled Devin into an ugly fight,” Brown said. “You could tell when the fight started getting uglier and uglier, it was favoring Ryan big time. When it was a nice, clean fight, boxer versus boxer, Devin was smoking him.”
