Editor’s note: This article was originally posted at DAZN.com.
SAN ANTONIO — Ryan Garcia and Emmanuel Tagoe don’t fight until Saturday at the Alamodome. But if Wednesday was any indication, we should expect fireworks.
At open workouts Wednesday, Tagoe was in the ring waiting for Garcia to come into the ring for a stare down. Not only did they go face-to-face, the fighters nearly came to blows.
Garcia looked as if he would walk away when he and Tagoe kept jawing at one another. Someone was trying to simmer things down, but the 23-year-old was having none of it.
“What you going to do?” Garcia shouted at Tagoe. “We can do it right now. You ain’t going to do s—. Look at you, look at you.”
It was hard to hear what Tagoe was saying to Garcia, who continued the verbal assault.
“Keep talking that,” Garcia continued. “What are you going to do right now? It’s about to be game over. I promise you that.”
More people went into the ring as Garcia and Tagoe tried to go at one another. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed even though the crowd wanted to see a fight. Garcia walked to the corner, threw up his right fist and shouted out, “Let’s go.”
Earlier in the week, Tagoe told DAZN that he felt Garcia was afraid of him. In Tagoe’s opinion, that’s why Garcia initially didn’t want to fight last January and instead chose to face Luke Campbell, who he stopped via seventh-round TKO.
“Ryan knows he’s scared of me for a long time,” Tagoe told DAZN. “I don’t know the reason why [Garcia didn’t fight me]. I’ll fight Ryan Garcia. He didn’t fight with me. He fight with Luke Campbell. After that, he sit down a year time before he decides to fight me.
“I think Ryan doesn’t have a chance and doesn’t bring anything to the table for me. I think he’s scared of me. That’s why he chose Luke Campbell.”
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