Ryan Garcia electrified the world when he took the fight to Devin Haney in April 2024, winning a majority decision in their hotly contested boxing match.
That win would be overturned after “King” Ryan tested positive for Ostarine, and despite Garcia’s insistence that he never used performance enhancing drugs, the quality of his comeback performance against Rolly Romero last weekend (a dismal unanimous decision loss) is certainly making some question what happened to the old Ryan.
On a recent episode of the Ariel Helwani Show, Helwani noted this was a similar to how people questioned Jon Jones after his failed PED tests.
For Ryan Garcia to have that performance after being accused of using PEDs in the Devin Haney fight… It definitely raises some valid questions from people. This performance was a total 180.
It reminds me of Jon Jones. When he came back against Ovince Saint Preux, he did not… pic.twitter.com/clApSvhgDd
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) May 6, 2025
“People are saying, ‘Hey, you look different when you’re not on PEDs, you fight different when you’re not on PEDs,” Helwani said. “To have that performance and then get accused of PEDs when you’re fighting Devin Haney, and then to come back saying you’re all clean and everything’s good and have that performance, the one that he had on on Friday, it raises some questions.”
“It reminds me of Jon Jones,” Helwani continued. “Jon Jones had his issues. He comes back. And against Ovince Saint Preux, he did not look good. He didn’t look good. And so people start questioning, like, ‘Okay. What’s going on here? What’s happening?’”
That timeline is a little messed up. Jones’ unimpressive performance against Saint Preux came after he was stripped of the UFC light heavyweight title for fleeing the scene of a crime — that time he hit a pregnant woman with his car and ran off on foot … then ran back to pull drugs out of the car before escaping again.
He tested positive for the PEDs clomiphene and letrozole three months after the Saint Preux fight, was suspended for a year, and then came back and kicked Daniel Cormier’s head off at UFC 314. Immediately after that fight he tested positive for turinabol (the first time), and it was following that suspension that he had flat and uninspired performances against Anthony Smith, Thiago Santos, and Dominick Reyes.
The point stands, though — if a fighter is destroying elite competition, flunks a drug test, then struggles with easier rebound opponents, it raises some questions. It’s been nearly a decade since Jones was flunking drug tests left right and center. Following Dana White’s ‘Jones is the GOAT’ publicity tour, few bring any of that up … and if they do it’s often misinformation.
One lesson we’ve learned from Jones that Garcia can take from this? If he turns things around and has an impressive performance or two, the world will forget this blip. Not now. For now Garcia’s going to be the butt of many a joke and accusation. But give it a year and a few wins, and no one will even remember this sudden slump.
