Oscar De La Hoya Confirms Golden Boy Will Co-Promote Ryan Garcia vs. Conor Benn
By Real Combat Media Boxing Editorial Staff
Los Angeles, California, (July 27th, 2026)–Oscar De La Hoya closed out Monday’s edition of The Ariel Helwani Show addressing the fight his company has spent weeks publicly grumbling about, confirming that Golden Boy Promotions remains fully in as a co-promoter of Ryan Garcia’s September 12 WBC welterweight title defense against Conor Benn.
The arrangement itself is not new. Golden Boy and Zuffa Boxing were confirmed as co-promoters when the fight was officially announced in mid-July, with both companies’ logos on the fight poster and the card set to stream on Paramount+ in the United States and DAZN in the United Kingdom and Ireland. What has kept the story alive is the tone. De La Hoya spent the weeks in between publicly questioning the matchup and his own level of involvement in putting it together, even while his company stands to profit from it.
Months of Public Tension
De La Hoya first said in early July that he had not been formally approached about the fight despite reports it was close to being finalized, framing it as a decision driven by Zuffa co-founder Turki Alalshikh rather than Golden Boy. “You can’t just make fights without Golden Boy and DAZN,” he said at the time, arguing his company’s contractual role couldn’t simply be sidestepped. He also said he would have preferred a Devin Haney rematch for Garcia over the Benn fight, comments that visibly frustrated Garcia, who pushed back publicly on Helwani’s show himself, pointing out that Golden Boy is getting paid on the fight it was publicly criticizing.
Despite the friction, the fight was never in doubt from a business standpoint. Garcia is one fight away from the end of his Golden Boy contract, and the September 12 card, part of Mexican Independence Day weekend at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, is expected to be the promotion’s biggest event to date.
What’s Next
With the co-promotion now restated publicly by De La Hoya himself, the remaining questions are about tone rather than logistics: whether Golden Boy and Zuffa keep sniping at each other through fight week, and whether Garcia’s frustration with his own promoter carries into the build to September 12. The fight itself is not in question. Garcia (25-2, 20 KOs) defends his WBC title against Benn (25-1, 14 KOs) on September 12 in Las Vegas.
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