Four years ago Conor Benn’s career was thrown into limbo after two positive drug tests scuppered his blockbuster fight with Chris Eubank Jr. Two years ago Ryan Garcia was serving a one-year suspension after testing positive for ostarine at the time of his greatest victory. On Saturday night they will each be rewarded with an eight-figure payday when they meet at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas for Garcia’s WBC welterweight championship.
The purses have not been disclosed, although reports have put the combined pot at around $30m with each fighter expected to haul in roughly $15m (£11m). Their routes to one of boxing’s biggest stages on Mexican Independence Day weekend have been different, as were the cases against them and their eventual outcomes. Both men insist they are not drug cheats, with Benn having ultimately been cleared by the National Anti-Doping Panel.
But their collision course offers a striking reminder of a sport in which scandal can derail a career without necessarily compromising the value of the fighter involved in it. Garcia (25-2, 20 KOs), the 28-year-old from Victorville, California, one of boxing’s first Gen-Z superstars, tested positive for the performance-enhancing anabolic agent ostarine on the day before and the day after his surprise win over Devin Haney in April 2024. His majority-decision victory was overturned to a no-contest, he was suspended for a year and his team blamed contaminated supplements.
Benn (25-1, 14 KOs) went through a longer and considerably more complicated ordeal. Two positive tests for the female fertility drug clomifene, a banned substance that can boost testosterone by 50%, emerged before the Londoner’s proposed fight with Eubank in October 2022, launching a regulatory battle that prevented him from fighting in Britain for two years. Benn maintained his innocence throughout.
Three years later, here they are. Garcia will make the first defense of the WBC title he won by dropping and outpointing Mario Barrios in February. For the 29-year-old Benn, it is a first world title shot and a chance to follow in the footsteps of his father, Nigel, who captured the WBC super-middleweight title more than three decades ago.
That Saturday’s fight was made at all speaks volumes about professional boxing’s peculiar moral ecosystem, where there is no single governing authority, universal anti-doping system or commissioner capable of imposing consistent sanctions across jurisdictions. Much of the power instead rests with promoters, broadcasters and sanctioning bodies whose financial interests are rarely served by keeping valuable fighters out of the ring. Dismissed by critics for his good looks, luxury-brand endorsements and huge social-media reach – upwards of 13.1m Instagram followers with 9m more on TikTok – Garcia has amassed a massive following while oscillating between elite performances and episodes of extraordinary self-sabotage.
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