After days of silence, one expected Ryan Garcia to enter fight week with energy and enthusiasm. Instead, it is now marked by yet another mysterious absence that has become typical of the welterweight champion’s pre-fight antics.

With just days remaining for the title defense against Conor Benn, Garcia took everyone off guard by not appearing at the first fight-week face-off. Predictably, Benn unleashed a taunt. But as his absence drew scrutiny, the WBC welterweight champion decided to offer an explanation that carried its own brand of shock value.

“Nice relaxing time, as Conor waste time showing up to a face-off. THE SAUNA YOU GO, SAUSAGE GETTING COOKED EVERY WAY,” his message now widely circulated on social media, read.

Those comments followed what happened at the first face-off of fight week. Nearly a minute of footage shared by Ring Magazine featured challenger Conor Benn entering the hall. Surrounded by reporters and video cameras, all the Brit could see was his father, legend Nigel Benn.

The father-son duo, however, turned it into an impromptu stand-in. Acting as backup, Nigel Benn faced off with his son, teasing, “I’m not Ryan; I turn up.”

With that, Conor Benn addressed the media. Taking a shot at Garcia, he added, “Well, I guess, guys, I apologize for Ryan doing what Ryan does and bottling it. We turn up, we’re here, ready for the face-off, and he needs to get his sh-t together because I can say that he’s in for a real, real, real shock, (a) big shock, because Ryan didn’t turn up for it.”

Garcia is widely known in the boxing community for his erratic behavior. Missing standard scripts and pulling out of or arriving late to promotional obligations seem to have become a norm for the Victorville native.

The most recent example was the February title fight against Mario Barrios. Ahead of the bout, Garcia reportedly missed his mandatory 14-day video weight check deadline. As a result, the WBC slapped a $5,000 fine on him. Perhaps the most notable case remains his 3.2-pound weight miss ahead of the now-infamous Devin Haney fight in April 2024.

Social media outbursts are something most have come to expect when Ryan Garcia is involved.

Yet, even against that background, missing the first fight-week face-off appears to be a new escalation.

One reason could be that, by marking his absence, Garcia is playing his usual psychological tricks, trying to peeve his opponent by getting inside his head. Garcia is also not the first fighter to miss the first face-off ahead of the bout.

Is Ryan Garcia asking for trouble with the fight week no-show?

In boxing, the most notable example remains Tyson Fury’s absence from the press event for the proposed rematch with Wladimir Klitschko. On November 28, 2015, the Englishman had outboxed the Ukrainian legend to become the unified heavyweight champion. The win led to talks of a rematch.

In 2016, however, Fury failed to appear for the presser for the second fight. His team said that car trouble, heavy traffic, and a dead phone had likely caused the delay. The rematch was later postponed and eventually cancelled for other reasons.

Beyond boxing, there are instances such as Nick Diaz missing important promotional events before the planned title fight with Georges St-Pierre at UFC 137 (2011). Because he failed to appear, UFC CEO Dana White removed Diaz from the championship bout and put Carlos Condit in his place.

A similar measure was taken against Irish superstar Conor McGregor, who did not travel to Las Vegas for UFC 200 promotional duties because he wanted to stay focused on training in Iceland. As a result, the UFC responded by taking McGregor off the card. The fight with Nate Diaz was, however, later rescheduled for UFC 202.

That history could, however, become a cause for worry.

Through his Zuffa Boxing, Dana White is the principal promoter of the Garcia-Benn card. Given his well-known uncompromising stance on pre-fight promotional obligations, the question is how White views Garcia’s latest antics.

Considering the commercial and business angle of the fight, will White strike a balance by letting it go as an aberration, or will there be a warning in place for the WBC welterweight champion to mend his ways?